Mass Effect: Objects in Space
by turelhimvampire
Summary: The collectors are all but defeated following the destruction of their base at the hands of Commander Shepard and the crew of the Normandy SR2. The Illusive Man is reeling at Shepard's betrayal - and is out for blood.
1. Chapter 1

The Normandy was burning. The acrid stench of smoke in a confined space was overpowering. It hung from the bulkheads like a pall, slowly filling the deck, consuming what little oxygen remained. The smell, the smell came first. Everything else was muted, but not that. As he recognised it for what it was, a momentary flash of fear jolted him awake, and the universe swam back into existence as he blinked his eyes open.

He became aware of the flickering lights almost immediately, everything given that awful orange cast, dancing across the surface of the world like that of a dreadful sea. A dull crackling invaded his senses next, muted, like he was hearing it through water. Shell shock, from whatever explosion had knocked him on his arse. It came back quickly, the dull echoes that reverberated through his skull retreating and leaving behind the acute realisation that the world was on fire.

For a single stuttering moment the orange was replaced by white, brilliant and painful to his vision. It came with violent, threatening cracks as something mechanical spat electricity into the room, sparks bouncing across the deck and spattering his armour. The smell was muted, as was the crackling of flames and the spark of electricity, as he pulled on his helmet, securing the pressure seal and allowing his suit to begin pumping its own internal oxygen supply. That should keep him from asphyxiating from smoke inhalation.

Then he remembered where he was, and what had happened before he had blacked out. He also became aware that most of the crew of the Normandy SR2 didn't have the luxury of a pressure sealed suit of armour designed for void combat. They would die from the smoke sooner than the fire which swept the ship. Hell, a lot probably already had.

He felt something at that moment , something he hadn't felt in years. Compassion. He realised then that he truly cared for the fates of these people, the crew of this Cerberus vessel. Too much time around the rest of his team. Making him soft. No, not soft. Making him remember what it had been like, all those years before. When the people he fought alongside had been friends as well as comrades in arms, and not some mercenary crew paid by some rich bastard with too much money and not enough skill to do a job with his own two hands.

He dragged himself to his feet, looking around the communications room to assess the situation. It was a wreck, the console housing the AI interface had overloaded, the resulting explosion demolishing the conference table and holographic projector. EDI wouldn't be able to talk to him in here, but she sure as shit could see and hear him. The cameras in the fibre optic bands running around the room up by the ceiling would ensure that. The smoke wouldn't matter to her, she could see right through it.

He staggered as a wave of nausea washed over him. He must have stood up too fast, throwing off his fragile centre of balance. He knew he'd hit his head when he fell. He'd hit it hard, too - the blood running down the back of his neck could stand witness to that. He reached out to steady himself against the wall, and it was then, as he did so that his foot caught on something, displacing it from where it had fallen.

He looked down through blurred vision, his head swimming, and blinked until he could see straight again. It was his rifle, folded up into its idle state. It must have collapsed into itself when he dropped it. He carefully bent over and grabbed it, his battered body protesting at the abuse. The rifle reacted to his touch, snapping open like a mechanical flower, the tell tale whine of a charging mass effect core music to his bruised ears. Hefting the weapon in his hand his face twisted into a lop-sided grin. He checked the thermal clip, the weapon display reading it as cold. Not a single shot fired. Ready as it ever could be. Flexing his fingers around the weapon, he rolled his shoulders, stretching the muscles, and craned his neck, tendons popping as he worked out the fatigue of his injury.

"Now we're in business." He said out loud, to no one in particular. Not that he had spotted anyone that could hear it anyway, except of course EDI.

EDI... he'd need her help to get this shit storm under control. Looking at where he thought the fibre optic strip would be, he cleared a gobbet of blood and saliva from his throat before speaking.

"EDI, I need you to show me where I need to go. You can see who needs me the most on this ship, so guide me will you?" He said, and set off toward the comms. room door. A bright blue glow pierced the smoke from where he was looking, and began to race away from him in pulses, acting like the docking lights of a space port. He would follow them, and see where EDI took him.

The first stop was the tech lab, the door half ajar as he reached it. It tried to slide back into its housing as he approached, but the mechanism was shot all to hell and it moved but a few inches. Stooping low, he squeezed through the gap and emerged into the lair of Mordin Solus.

The salarian was nowhere in sight. His heavy pistol was gone from its usual storage space - a hidden compartment built into the edge of the scientist's work bench. You could take a salarian away from the STG, but that merciless paranoia stuck with them for life. That was good, it meant the professor had enough of his wits about him to arm himself before fleeing the lab, and that meant that he wasn't seriously injured. Or at least he hadn't been when he left this place.

Smoke filled the lab, albeit not as heavily as it had the comms room. Other than what had filtered through the life support systems and had ventilated into the room, it looked largely undamaged. Mordin's little chemistry set was a write off - glass vials, bottles and specimen jars lay shattered where they had fallen, their contents mixing and creating a vile looking mess that he didn't dare tread in. Every time the ship shook from impacts and secondary explosions, ripples ran across its surface from the centre of the puddle to its edges and back again. It served as a reminder that whoever had attacked them was still attacking them - not that he needed to be reminded.

Nodding in satisfaction at knowing the salarian wasn't here, he had turned toward the airlock that lead into the Normandy's combat information centre, the blue lights from EDI guiding him along the path. He spotted the AI projection interface here had overloaded as well. That didn't bode well at all. Whoever had hit them had managed to take out at least two of EDI's emitters, essentially muting the shipboard AI from coordinating a counter offensive. With EDI contained, the Normandy would be that much more vulnerable to attack. Only a select few of the crew had any knowledge of EDI's unshackling, which meant that if their enemy knew it, then their enemy could be only one.

Cerberus.

It seemed the Illusive Man had finally come to cash in on their debts with the Collector base, and the theft of the Normandy itself. Well, that was a start, at least he knew who - if not what - he was up against. Right now, he'd take any advantage he could get.

He was about to head through the door out of the lab when he stopped in his tracks. Something made him turn around and head to the far end of the lab and look down into the engine room, the mass effect core it housed thankfully intact. Stepping onto the glass floor of the viewing platform, he pressed himself against the glass and strained to see down onto the engineering deck, to see if anyone could be alive down there.

There he saw her. Standing alone, swiftly but calmly working at the consoles overlooking the core. She was so tiny, at least to him. Lithe and shapely at the same time. He couldn't deny her body was enticing, if you were into that kind of thing. It was the face that gave him pause, though, hidden as it was behind the mask of her form fitting - and armoured - enviro-suit. Not knowing what she looked like under that helmet was akin to dating a woman with a paper bag over her head.

He pushed those thoughts aside as he realised what he was thinking, and banged on the armoured glass of the window. It was futile though, she couldn't hear him. Not that it would matter if she could, he realised as he watched her work. She wasn't going anywhere. That damn quarian would go down with the ship if she had to. His loyalty to his team ensured that he knew one more thing; he'd damn well die before he let that happen. She'd earned that much, this Tali'Zorah vas Normandy.

Turning away from the window, he hurried toward the CIC, and hoped he could get to her in time.


	2. Chapter 2

"Come on you bosh'tet, work!" She hissed under her breath, her fingers a blur as she tapped at the command consoles overlooking the mass effect core. Despite appearances, the core was in trouble. The greatest threat the Normandy faced right now was not the other ship firing at it, nor the boarding party that was even now battling with the assassin Krios and a fire team of the ship's crew in the cargo hold at the front of the engineering deck. No, the thing that worried her the most right now was the stability of the mass effect field generated by the huge orb and field dampeners that made up the heart of the Normandy SR2.

She kept her voice low, and mentally ran through a quarian breathing technique used by machinists to keep calm under pressure. She couldn't let engineers Donnelly and Daniels see just how terrified she really was. She had to stay calm, or at least appear to, for their sakes. She had the utmost faith in her abilities, and knew that if anyone could fix this, she could. They trusted her to know exactly what she was doing at all times, Daniels was even in awe of her technical abilities.

But Tali was frightened now, seeing the readouts before her and knowing just how fine a line she walked. If she showed even a flicker of doubt - if she hesitated even for a split second - and if the two human engineers saw it...

They were good, some of the best humanity had to offer. But they were human, not quarian. They were nothing like as skilled as she was, as her people were. If they panicked, they could make a mistake, and at this point even the slightest error in their calculations could begin a chain reaction that would tear the Normandy apart.

She couldn't risk it.

Tapping away at the console, she finished her latest adjustments to the field density and glanced up to see what effect it had on the field, hoping that this one wasn't the mistake, that this wouldn't spell their doom. As she did, she spotted a figure through the glass view port of Mordin's tech lab. Shepard?

Could it be the commander? Was Shepard alive?

Shocked, she watched - hypnotised, as the figure turned and hurried away, out of sight. It was too far a distance - and the lab too full of smoke - to tell if it had been Shepard, but she hoped in her heart that it had been. She wanted him to be here with her, now. Despite the presence of the engineers, she felt so alone, and the lives of the entire crew rested in her hands. Shepard had helped her on the Migrant Fleet, had shown her since that he could see past the mask she wore, that there was life beyond her paltry existence.

Right now, in what could be her final moments, she needed him. It was all she could do not to cry out his name, but she thought of Donnelly and Daniels, and how fragile their calm must be. She needed Shepard, but she couldn't risk damaging their calm. Not now.

Returning her full attention back to the console, she scanned the readings scrolling across the screen, rapidly typing the commands to adjust the mass effect field to correct any anomalies, and risks to the ship.

Please Shepard, she thought, fighting down the panic that she was so expertly hiding. Help me. I need you.

The airlock door to the combat information centre opened to a scene of barely controlled chaos. He scanned the room quickly, taking stock of the situation. Smoke was fairly thick in places, as numerous fires were burning amongst damaged control consoles and ruptured pipes. The crew - including Yeoman Chambers - were busy with extinguishers, trying the douse the fires before they began to burn uncontrollably.

Looking the length of the deck, he could see Dr Solus just off the flight deck, the salarian's eyes narrowed as he barked orders to the rest of the crew. He did not seem in any distress, though his uniform was in tatters, scorched in places and smeared black with soot in others. Across his sternum was a bloody hand print, though none of the crew in this section of the ship appeared to be injured. Another good sign. Though knowing what he knew about their enemy, he had expected the damage to the CIC to be minimal - Cerberus hadn't spent billions rebuilding this vessel and it's commander just to blow them both into so much space debris.

He nodded in solemn greeting as a few crew members looked up at his entrance, Jacob Taylor amongst them. The soldier looked pissed off, which was a strange but welcome look from the young man. He hadn't thought Jacob had the balls for this kind of work - more of an honest grunt than a black ops specialist. It was nice to see some fire in his eyes for once.

They didn't exchange words, but that look had been enough. He knew that that anger had been reflected in his own eyes. He was easily as furious as Jacob, even more so. This was his own fault though. He had grown complacent whilst working for Cerberus. Working on the inside of the most disreputable human organisation in the galaxy has numbed him to exactly what they were capable of. It made him feel sick to be a human, seeing how Cerberus was conducting this attack.

They were in the middle of nowhere, moving away from the quarian migrant fleet after some business with that marine, Kal'reeger. The flotilla had been passing through an uninhabitable system to refuel from a local gas giant, whilst on route to rendezvous with one of their exploration vessels, the Idenna.

Shepard and the Normandy had met the quarians out there to keep things quiet, to avoid drawing unnecessary attention to the migrant fleet, now that Cerberus had declared them traitors. First the Alliance had turned its back on Shepard, and then Cerberus had as well. The quarians were some of the few the Normandy could still count as friends, or allies at the very least. That Cerberus had sent a ship to ambush them out here, too far from both the flotilla and any settled worlds to call for help, meant that this was very personal indeed.

The Illusive Man clearly hated them.

Dismissing this train of thought, he turned away from the chaos in the CIC and headed into the elevator, readying his rifle and thumbing the button for the engineering deck. Last reports he'd heard before he blacked out were that the main contingent of Cerberus soldiers were in the shuttle bay, and that the drell, Thane Krios, was down there with some of the crew trying to drive them back.

The doors sealed shut, and with a quiet hiss the elevator began to descend into the bowels of the Normandy. 


	3. Chapter 3

He watched the indicator light flashing as the elevator moved between floors, past the crew deck and toward engineering. The hanger was listed at the very bottom, but he didn't like the idea of exiting an elevator right into a fire fight. The balcony overlooking it on the engineering deck would be a much more tactically viable position. Besides, the recent damage done to the windows there during the battle with the collector occulobe would allow him to fire down on the Cerberus boarding party from above, hopefully providing Thane with a crossfire. He just hoped EDI shared his assessment.

The indicator hovered over the number four - the engineering deck - and the elevator began to slow its decent. Clearly EDI did agree with him, trusting him to pick his own strategy rather than choosing his path for him as he had originally asked. It would have been easy for her to override his choice of deck and take the elevator down to the lowest deck.

As the doors began to open, the initial hiss of escaping air as the pressure seals parted was quickly lost to the sound of gunfire, the report of assault rifles mingling with pistol shots and shotgun blasts. The tell tale crack of a sniper weapon assured him that Thane was still alive. Stooping low, he swept from the elevator, checking right then left, his rifle leading. He paused for a second when he spotted the doors to the cargo bay Grunt had made his home had been welded shut. Last he had heard the krogan was sleeping in his tank, but Cerberus were smart not to take any chances.

Even a cursory glance told him that there was no way he'd get that open without cutting tools. Shame, he could have used the big scaly bastard right now. Still, it also told him that despite Thane's resistance, at least some members of Cerberus were loose on the ship. That made Tali'Zorah and the other engineers even more of a priority for defence. He'd have to gauge the situation very carefully, or something could go very wrong, very quickly.

Dropping into cover against the balcony wall, he risked a look over the lip of the window frame, carefully taking in the scene in the shuttle bay whilst using the broken glass still in the frame to help conceal him from the enemies below.

A Cerberus lander had touched down at the far end of the hanger bay, and around two dozen troopers were firing from covering positions, cowering behind machinery and crates of god knows what. Back toward the elevator, Thane and four members of the Normandy crew fired back from behind a stack of crates, with a fifth crewman slumped against their cover holding a nasty gut wound and screaming for a medic. From the looks of things Thane had kept firing discipline in the crew, and they had done damn well to hold off their attackers as long as they had. Still, time was running out for them, unless he did something soon.

Checking his rifle one last time, he selected the disruptor ammunition setting on the side of the gun, and popped up out of cover firing a burst with deadly precision, stripping the kinetic barriers from one of the Cerberus officers. Thane did not miss the opportunity, and put a rifle round through the man's faceplate before the shields had time to recharge. The man went rigid and toppled backwards like a felled tree, his armour clattering as it hit the deck. The corpse began to spasm, and he knew with some satisfaction that the kill had been clean.

That damn Drell was almost scary sometimes... 


	4. Chapter 4

Thane Krios was bleeding. That didn't happen often. Even so, the pain was all too familiar - a perfect memory had its drawbacks, after all. It was nought but a flesh wound where a round has passed under his arm and grazed the meat of his ribs. But it was bleeding heavily, and the pain was beginning to hinder his aim. It was getting harder to steady his rifle, and he couldn't afford to miss even one shot.

Breaking cover, he sighted down the scope, and lined up on a Cerberus officer, hoping to overload the human's kinetic barriers. That would give the crew a chance to batter through the heavy ablative plates that covered his battle armour. Instinct told him to aim for the head - further away from the shield emitter built into the back of the suit just below the magnetic clamps. It would be weaker around the extremities, and the head gave him the best chance of scoring a debilitating shot should the round manage to pierce the shield.

Just as his finger squeezed on the trigger, a burst of fire came from the balcony above, on the engineering deck, and hammered the officers shields. The better firing angle from such a vantage point allowed for an easier shot, and with a burst of static the barriers went down. Before the man could react to this new threat, Thane gently squeezed, and his rifle bucked in his hands. A puff of red mist burst out from the back of the man's head, and he fell out of the assassins field of view.

He had lived in a dangerous profession long enough to know a kill shot when he saw one, so he dropped back into cover, checking the thermal clip to see how much more the heat sink could take. Two, maybe three more shots.

One of the crewman risked a look around the crates they were using as cover, and fell back almost immediately, his eye a bloody ruin. Thane almost prayed for the lost soul, until the man began to scream. He was still alive. Truly Arashu applauded his bravery. Thane would see to it that the man lived, or he would die in the attempt.

He lifted his head above the crate, and caught a glimpse of the enemy who had shot the screaming crewman. He counted for three heartbeats before breaking cover again, right as the enemy soldier rolled out of cover to fire again. He never got the chance, as Thane put two rounds into him, one in the chest, one in the throat. The soldier slumped forward, his pistol falling from slack hands. The thermal readout on his rifle showed enough left in the heat sink for one more shot. Good, that last kill had made him feel weak. The blood loss was getting dangerous now. It wouldn't take much more before he would need to seek medical attention, which meant falling back, and surrendering the shuttle bay to Cerberus.

If that happened, nothing would stop them overrunning the ship.

Now he had fired three times from this spot, and was playing a dangerous game. A sniper should never fire more than once from a concealed position. The muzzle flash made you a prime target for counter snipers. He needed to move. It seemed that whoever was up on the balcony had enough of experience to comprehend exactly that, as at that moment a spray of assault rifle fire came from one of the broken windows, forcing the Cerberus soldiers to keep their heads down.

Thane didn't need a second chance. He darted from cover, sprinting toward a refuelling mech that was secured in a large hydraulic cradle, and dropped into cover behind it, his vision swimming with the exertion. He took a few steadying breaths and ducked further behind the cradle, hoping to flank his foes.

His injury must have been worse than he thought, as he didn't see the Cerberus soldier looming up before him from the far side of the cradle until it was too late, the scorcher in his enemy's hands coming up to meet him, muzzle spitting restless gouts of flame. It looked like Kepral's syndrome wouldn't be the death of him after all. Smiling, Thane slipped into himself, his eyes glazing over as the memory of Irikah washed away the battle in the bowels of the Normandy.

He had watched with some satisfaction as the Cerberus soldiers dived for cover as he unloaded round after round over their heads. He found himself smiling again as Thane had switched his position, sprinting like an athlete toward the huge bulk of a fuelling mech. Smart little bastard was going to flank them.

He grasped another thermal clip from his pocket as a smouldering heat sink was ejected from the side of his rifle, steam billowing from it like the tail of a comet as it fell to the deck beside him. Ramming the fresh clip home, his features became grim as the realisation dawned on him that this was his last one. Better make it count.

He saw Thane favouring his left side, and realised the drell must have been hit earlier in the battle. Then he saw something that gave him pause. A Cerberus pyro-trooper he hadn't seen when he fired his suppressing burst had spotted Thane's gamble, and ducked behind a fuelling tank on the far side of the mech cradle. There was no way Thane could have seen him from where he was crouched.

Unfortunately the tank was also blocking his view of the trooper, so he risked the barrage of return fire that was hammering the balcony, and ran as fast as his battered form could manage toward the door to Grunt's cargo room. He dropped back into cover for but a moment, before hauling his tired body up into the line of fire.

He took a glancing hit to the shoulder almost immediately, but ignored it and raised his rifle, just as Thane broke cover once again, rolling around the back of the cradle, and right into the path of the pyro-trooper. From his new vantage point he could see nothing but a tiny gap between the cradle and the fuel tank.

Another round hit him, this time in the gut, but the bullet lodged into his armour and didn't pierce the flesh. He'd been shot enough times to know that whilst it was a minor injury, it would leave one hell of a bruise. He waited for what seemed like an eternity, expecting any moment for the distinctive whoosh of a flamer discharge, signalling the drell's demise.

Instead he caught a flicker of movement from the gap his rifle was sighted on, and he fired, guided by instinct honed from years of warfare and black ops missions, the disruptor rounds passing through the gap and missing both the cradle and the tank by a fraction of an inch.

Then everything went white, and the world trembled.

Thane's memories of his beloved Irikah were ripped from his mind as he was thrown backwards by a force that felt like the hand of a god. He slammed back into a heat exchanger, it's metal skin dented inwards from the impact. He fought through the pain, shaking away the shock of the moment and tried to find his weapon. The rifle was gone, who knew where, but so was the pyro trooper. All that remained of the Cerberus soldier was a blackened scorch mark on the floor where he had been standing, and the stench of chemicals and cooked meat.

It took him a moment to register what had happened. Someone had hit the troopers pack, igniting the volatile gasses contained in the twin flasks. None of the fire team he had brought with him would have hand an angle to pull off that shot, and he doubted any of them could have managed it even if they had. No, the shot had come from the shooter on balcony, and Thane knew of but a scant few people who could have pulled it off, himself included.

As clarity returned, he grinned despite himself, the unfamiliar sensation of the thrill of a near death experience overcoming his normally stoic calm. The explosion had had an interesting side effect. A stray round must have pierced one of the flexible pipes running from the tank to the cradle, and the burning gasses from the flasks had ignited the spilled fuel, triggering a chain reaction that had detonated the fuel tank.

Only the bulk of the cradle and the now scorched mech held securely inside had shielded him from the blast, and had saved his life. The same could not be said of the Cerberus assault team. Six of them were vaporised instantly, another four killed outright as the shock wave liquefied their organs and pulped their bones.

The rest were knocked to the deck, a good number thrown out of their cover by the force of the explosion. The Normandy fire team capitalised on this, hammering the exposed foes with everything they had - with little or no return fire from their stunned enemies.

Just like that, the tide had turned.

Thane dragged himself to his feet and drew his pistol, staggering back into the cover afforded by the damaged mech. He caught a glimpse of his saviour above him as he did, and he nodded a salute, which was promptly returned. An assault rifle flew through the air toward him, and he caught it easily, his brow furrowed in confusion.

"Make good use of it, you need it more than I do!" The figure on the balcony shouted. "And toss me a bloody pistol would you?"

Thane simply nodded, and threw his carnifex under arm up into the air, a flicker of pain running through his body as his injured ribs protested. The figure snatched the pistol from the air, and turned away from the fight in the shuttle bay, his part played out. 


	5. Chapter 5

The core was holding together, barely. The fluctuations in field density had abated somewhat, but the the ship wasn't out of danger yet. There were damaged systems everywhere, the diagnostics flooding across the displays were showing dozens of faulty sections in the life support alone. Fires were breaking out everywhere, systems weren't responding to commands, three of the blast doors were non-functional, both long and short ranged communications were down, the FTL drive was offline, engines were running at 4% above safe recommended operational levels. There was a hull breach in the shuttle bay - although thankfully the magnetic containment field generated by the mass effect core was holding, so the bay was not open to hard vacuum, but if the core destabilised any further, that couldn't be counted on to remain that way. To top it all off there were reports of another explosion in the shuttle bay, that had just occurred not moments before.

At least Tali'Zorah knew what the quaking of the deck had been caused by. She shook her head, in awe of the damage to the ship, her ship. Whatever had hit them had crippled them, and it was all she could do to keep the ship core from passing the point of no return, the zero threshold - so named because if the core dipped below it, there was zero chance of survival for anyone on board.

Donnelly and Daniels were hurrying around somewhere behind her, rapidly working to keep the rest of the ship alive for as long as they could. Tali had taken sole responsibility for the state of the mass effect core, for it was hers, her 'child', her 'baby'. If it were to die, she would be the one to usher it painlessly into the next world, before it dragged all of them violently after it.

She stopped typing for a moment and stretched, her enviro-suit tickling her flesh as it was stretched along with her. Standing stooped over the consoles was hell on her lower back, her posture about as uncomfortable as it could possibly be. Taking a step backwards she leant forwards, resting the faceplate of her helmet against the safety railings running along the back of the console. She sighed wearily, before straightening up once more.

Deciding that the core could wait for a moment, she synced her omni tool with the diagnostics console, so she could work on the move, and turned away from the core. She set off toward her normal station, hoping to check the stock listings for spare parts Cerberus had provided when outfitting the engineering deck, stopping dead in her tracks as she noticed Donnelly quickly avert his gaze at her approach. He'd been watching her again. She couldn't understand what fascinated him so much about her, but it seemed a subject of much heated debate between him and his human colleague.

Shaking her head she continued to her station, pulling up the necessary files and scanning over the inventory. She immediately spotted several items of use, and flagged them for requisition on her omni tool. She didn't see nearly enough parts for what she had to do to stabilise the core.

She had already re-routed power from the FTL drive, engines, and internal lighting systems in none essential areas, and pushed them all into strengthening the external impact shielding. The Normandy shook repeatedly from impacts of starship weapons, so Tali knew at least that there was some shooting going on but no one seemed to be at an advantage, as damage reports stated merely cosmetic damage to the ships hull.

"Move it, Donnelly!" Tali said, annoyance creeping into her voice. "Those FBA couplings will not replace themselves. We need some good news right now; so how about giving me a chance to repair some of the damaged systems. I can't do it without functional couplings!"

"Aye lassie, don' get your knickers in a knot." Donnelly said, and turned toward the exit, heading for the direction of parts storage.

He never made it. The door before him opened, revealing three enemy soldiers who burst into the room and raised their rifles to cover the three engineers. Donnelly lunged at the nearest one, a wrench clasped in his hands. The enemy was quicker, and stuck the barrel of his rifle into the scotsman's throat, a dark look etched upon his features.

"Try it princess." He said, jabbing the weapon into Donnelly's chest and pushing him back before forcing him down onto his station's seat. "Just give me a reason, chuckles."

Whilst the initial man had Donnelly covered, Daniels was being man-handled to one side by another, and the third - the most dangerous one by the looks of things, was striding across the deck toward her, a heavy pistol clasped in his hand and a look of sheer hatred on his grizzled features.

This could go very wrong, indeed. 


	6. Chapter 6

The M-6 Carnifex was a fearsome weapon, a turian manufactured beast that was all show and no finesse. It made a loud bang when fired, and kicked like a mule, making it incredibly popular with mercenaries. It was a shame that it's popularity wasn't based solely on these traits, as it generally hit whatever it was pointed at, and - so long as the target did not have kinetic barriers - usually made a hell of a mess.

It was a shame, as a fine specimen of the heavy pistol was currently about two inches from Tali'Zorah vas Normandy's face plate, and the human pointing it at her was considerably angry.

"Where is Subject Zero?" He said, pressing the weapon against the violet armour-glass. The barrel made a slight squeal as the metal scratched the mask, Tali's glowing eyes narrowing at the threat. Gritting her teeth, she placed her hands on her hips and remained silent. She had faced a rogue spectre and a reaper in combat, this human did not scare her with his threats of violence.

"I asked you a question you filthy little shit." He growled, and backhanded her across the side of her head with the pistol, knocking her to the ground. "Where is Subject Zero? Is she on this ship?"

"Go to hell you bosh'tet!" Tali snarled, struggling to stand up again. Her head was swimming, and specks of light danced across her vision, her head throbbing from the force of the blow.

"What did you call me?" The man said, his face twisted with rage. "You want to play tough huh? Fine, I'll bite. You aliens are all the same, so sure of your own self importance. Well you see me, I hate your kind, you and all your other filthy friends. You are all that is holding my kind back. Hell I wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire, bitch."

Stepping back from Tali, the human spread his arms wide and stooped forward, as if presenting himself to her for judgement.

"You see me? Do you? You aliens mean nothing to me." He said, before spinning around so rapidly he even took his own men by surprise. The pistol snapped up, and the man fired a single shot, the force of the impact knocking Donnelly to the ground, blood gushing from the wound in the small of his back. He lay still, and didn't make a sound. Daniels - however - screamed, and tried to go to her friend's aid, but the other soldier held her back, brandishing his own pistol in her face as a reminder that not doing what she was told would be very ill advised.

"I'm willing to do whatever it takes to get humanity to our rightful place, even kill my own kind. You think I care about what happens to you?" He said, turning back round to face Tali. "Now I'll ask you again. Subject Zero. Where. Is. She?"

Tali'Zorah considered all her possible responses, wanting nothing more than to strike this man down for what he had done. Donnelly was a lecherous man, but he was part of her crew, and he deserved better. Her resistance crumbled, and her shoulders sagged, the helplessness of her situation finally driven home.

"She is... not aboard. She left the ship weeks ago, along with a shore party. I don't know where she went, the Commander didn't say." Tali said, unwilling to risk Daniels' well being too.

"Good. If you're lying, or if you try anything, I've got this..." The man said, reaching into his combat webbing and retrieving a medical injector. "One wrong move and I stick you with it. I don't know what it's called, but I've seen it used on your kind before. Makes a really nice looking puddle out of your tissue. Do we understand each other?"

"Perfectly." Tali said, venom in her voice as some of her defiance returned in the face of so vile a weapon. The man smiled behind his helmet, the transparent faceplate failing to hide the rotten teeth in his grinning mouth.

"Excellent. Glad we understand each other."

The door to the engineering sub-deck stairwell was jammed, the status display on the access panel flashing a red warning light. Closer examination of the locking mechanism showed tell tale signs of melting consistent with that found on the door to Grunt's cargo room. He cursed under his breath, and set off back the way he had come, keeping low to avoid being spotted by any remaining Cerberus soldiers down in the shuttle bay below. The sounds of battle were becoming increasingly sporadic as Thane's men mopped up the last of the enemy strike team.

The fact that two of the blast doors on this deck had been welded shut were all the evidence he needed to know that the attack on the shuttle bay was a diversion to allow commando teams to get onto the ship via alternate means. He didn't know how, but he'd let EDI figure that one out. All he knew was that Cerberus had elite troops operating on the ship. They knew the layout of the Normandy - they'd built the damn thing. Chances are they could monitor communications too. He couldn't risk warning the rest of the crew for fear that the enemy might scuttle the ship. It's what he'd have done, had the circumstances been reversed.

He just hoped they hadn't completely locked down access to engineering - he really didn't want to go crawling through ducts considering the condition he was in. His body still ached from the explosion in the communications room, and he had begun to realise that he had likely broken a rib or two. He was running on adrenaline, and it had pushed the pain to the back of his mind. His armour had already applied medi-gel to the affected area, but there was only so much it could do for broken bones.

The port access door loomed before him, and his shoulders sagged in relief as he saw the lock was undamaged. He reached out a hand and keyed the activation button, the green light of the access panel flickering for a moment before it powered down, and the segmented portal receded into the bulkhead.

The pain in his side came back with renewed vigour, distracting him to the point where he almost didn't realise that he was standing face to face with a shocked looking Cerberus trooper, the woman holding a portable fusion beamer, the business end of the tool glowing white hot. It was fully charged.

It dawned on both of them at the same time that he was standing right in its field of fire, and he twisted away to the side as the commando thumbed the activation switch and pulled the beamers trigger. His helmet filters couldn't block out the acrid smell of molten metal and ionised air as a beam of superheated gas shot three feet out from the tool, vaporising the side of his armour and scorching the flesh underneath.

Pain - almost overwhelming agony - surged through his body, so acute he couldn't even scream, and his hand shot out instinctively toward the tool as the commando brought it around to fire it again. He knocked her arm aside, the impact jarring his pistol from his grip, and it clattered to the deck, bouncing from the metal plating and falling down into the stairwell to the engineering sub-level.

So much for the easy option.

He'd have to do this the hard way; up close and bloody. That suited him fine. He grinned like a maniac behind his helmet and brought his other hand down in and overhead blow to the side of his opponents neck. Her armour's gorget protected her from most of the force of the blow, but still she reeled from the impact, and he pressed the advantage, hammering a right hook into her chest that staggered her back a couple of steps.

A fresh surge of adrenaline coursed through his system, overriding the shock of the fusion beam, and he rushed at her, hoping to use his superior size to bring her down fast. But his opponent was a commando, and a damn good one too, he realised as she sidestepped to his left and dropped into a fighting stance faster than he could arrest his charge. Instead he redirected to keep his aim true, knowing that if he couldn't stop himself he could only commit to the attack, and hope at least some of it got through.

She would never have had the time to bring her fists up fast enough to punch him, so instead she slammed her knee into his gut, doubling him over. Unfortunately for her his momentum carried him forward, and he barrelled into her, the two of them falling against the safety railing overlooking the stairwell. The small of her back hit the top of the railing, her feet leaving the deck, and - combined with his weight pushing into her chest - she fell backwards, over the railing.

She grabbed at his armour, her eyes burning with fury, and dragged him after her.

A memory leapt unbidden into his mind. The sensation of weightlessness. The soft caress of the Asari's skin against his, feeling her embrace and letting himself be taken by the moment as they drifted in the zero-G. Her fingers traced the scars on his back - her touch like ice - bringing ecstasy wherever they roamed.

Reality returned like a hammer blow as he hit the steps near the bottom of the stairwell, the commando slamming into the ground beside him. They rolled the last few feet to the bottom, landing in a tangled heap in the darkness of the maintenance sub-deck. The world would not stop spinning, at least until a fist slammed into his face plate, his head bouncing from the deck.

His vision cleared just in time for him to roll aside as the commando - now back on her feet - slammed her booted foot into the ground where his head had been moments before. He kept rolling as she snapped a kick at his chest, and he grabbed her boot with both hands, twisting so hard it wrenched her from her feet and she fell unceremoniously back to the deck.

He pulled himself back to his feet, panting heavily - the fall had aggravated his injured ribs, and the fused flesh of his side burned like hot coals. He was running on his last reserves of strength, and the look in his opponents eyes as she stood up once again showed him that she knew it too.

She began to circle him, an easy confidence to her stride, moving like a predator sensing weakness in its prey. The fusion beamer dangled - forgotten - from its power cable, connected to a boxy generator pack strapped to her hip. Her armour was dented and scratched in a dozen places, and her gorget had been torn free during the fall, hanging from her chest plate by one strap.

Her confidence turned to panic as she saw the pistol in his hand, retrieved from where it had fallen during the fight.

Summoning all her strength she leapt at him as he raised the weapon in a trembling hand. She was on him in a flash, knocking his forearm aside and thrusting a knife-edged jab at his throat. He twisted aside, the blow glancing from his shoulder guard, and he grabbed her dangling gorget in his free hand and pulled with all his strength, dragging her off balance.

They fell again, her face hitting the deck and sending stars dancing in front of her eyes. He fell on top of her, and snaked his arms around her - one across her neck, the other over her stomach. Holding on as hard as he could he rolled over onto his back, pulling her along with him. His arms freed, he tightened his grip and began to choke her.

She resisted at first, thrashing in his arms, but he was too strong, and he had her in an iron hard grip. It didn't take her long to realise, and instead of flailing ineffectually at him she hammered her elbow into his side, the agony of the fusion burn leaping back to the forefront of his consciousness.

Feeling him tense, she repeated the blow, searing pain shooting through his body at the impact.

He could not take another blow, his vision was going dark around the edges and it seemed like he was viewing the world from the bottom of hole in the ground. He was beginning to black out. If he did, it would be game over - he'd never wake up.

He let go of her stomach and shielded the wound with his arm, her elbow impacting his armour rather than his burned flesh. It was then that his fingers closed around something solid and heavy, and hot to the touch. Grasping hold of it he twisted onto his side, throwing her off balance, and spoiling her next blow.

"Nice try darling." He hissed in her ear, and rammed the fusion beamer up under her chin. He thumbed the safety switch, and she went rigid with fear as the sound of the tool charging up echoed around the room.

"Better luck next time." He said, and pulled the trigger. There was a flash of white light, an overwhelming blast of heat, and the commando went limp in his arms.

Pushing the smoking corpse away from him, he dragged his battered body back to his feet and looked down at the mess. The front of her helmet - and her face - were several feet away from her body, the remains steaming from the perfect, clean cut the fusion beamer had made through her head.

Shaking his head, he retrieved the pistol from the floor and staggered wearily back up to the deck above, weapon held at the ready. The rest of her team were surely in the engine room, and for all he knew they had heard the struggle. They would be waiting, and he did not intend to keep them waiting for long.


	7. Chapter 7

Donnelly was bleeding out, Tali did not need to be a doctor to see that. Daniels saw it too, and she sobbed quietly, staring transfixed at the last moments of her childhood friend. The blood from his wound was pooling around him, and his breathing was so very shallow. The monster that had taken his life, had condemned him to a slow and painful death, was pacing the engine room like a caged animal, tapping that damned pistol against his armoured thigh as he walked.

Tali sat with her back against the glass of the core's safety railings, and was studying the core readings on her onmi tool. The commando team leader looked up from his fevered pacing, and rushed over to her.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, alien?" He said, aiming his pistol at her once more. "You trying to summon your little pet drone? Don't, unless you want another death on your conscience."

"I'm trying to ensure the core does not destabilise and drop below the zero threshold, tearing this ship apart in the process. Now get that gun out of my face!" Tali hissed, her anger beginning to well up inside her again. The commando leader seemed to think on this for a moment before turning away from her.

"Just don't try any heroics." He said, waving the gun to remind her of what it had done to Donnelly.

The port stairwell was silent now, the struggle it had played host to was over. He checked the pistol Thane had given him to ensure it had not been damaged in the fight, and was pleased to see that everything looked green. Readying the weapon, he crossed to the engine room access door, and pressed himself up against the frame. Leaning across, he pressed the activation switch before dropping back into cover, and waited.

"What is taking Sorel so long?" The commando leader said under his breath, stopping dead in his tracks and turning to his team, pointing to the one who had been guarding Donnelly. "Go and find her. Now."

The man nodded and promptly turned to leave, heading toward the port access stairwell. He raised his rifle to his shoulder as the blast door opened, conscious of the fact that Sorel was still out in the corridor. He didn't want to run the risk of pointing a gun at her, so his weapon was aimed at the deck, ready if needed.

Tali watched with some amazement as a battered and bruised human in clearly damaged armour appeared in the doorway, and put a single shot through the troopers face before dropping into cover. The dead man's body simply ceased to function, and he went down like a marionette with it's strings cut.

The remaining two enemy soldiers returned fire, their barrage peppering the hull with an impotent fury.

The wounded crewman rolled out of cover again, and charged into the engine room. This insane tactic confused the lesser of the two commandos, and he took a round in the throat for his troubles, dropping his rifle and rolling in agony as his life blood pumped swifttly out onto the deck.

The commando leader, however, activated a second kinetic barrier, doubling his shield integrity. There was no way the crewman who had come to their aid would have a chance of taking them down. That didn't stop him trying, as four Carnifex shots in quick succession hammered into the barriers, sparks flying in all directions.

As he raised his pistol to return fire, a look of confusion crested the man's face, and he dropped his own weapon to the deck. Reaching up over his shoulder he tried to grab at something at his back, but without success.

His mouth opened and closed in a silent scream. He twisted and fell to the deck, the injector protruding from between his shoulder blades.

Tali - standing directly behind him - folded her arms across her chest and watched as her tormentor writhed in pain, showing no sympathy as the chemicals went to work in his bloodstream.

"It seems your little cocktail works on humans too." Tali hissed, before turning away from the rapidly liquefying man and hurried over to Donnelly to check his vitals. 


	8. Chapter 8

Tali'Zorah vas Normandy knelt down beside engineer Kenneth Donnelly, and reached out gingerly toward his neck. She pressed her finger against his jugular, feeling for a pulse.

"He's alive." She said, her shoulders sagging with relief. Engineer Daniels burst into tears, dropping to her knees beside her friend. Tali placed a hand on her shoulder to get her attention. "We need to get him to the infirmary, and fast. He doesn't look good."

Standing over the body of the commando leader, he nodded his agreement, dropping his spent pistol to the ground and gathering up the Cerberus officers own weapon, a custom modified M-6 with an improved heat sink and red dot sight. It wasn't a bad piece, and this ugly bastard wouldn't be needing it any more.

"Prick." He said to the rapidly decomposing mess pooling on the deck, before firing a round through the man's face to be certain. Daniels jumped at the report of the weapon, and set off sobbing again.

"Tali'Zorah?" He said, turning away from the corpse and looking back to the three engineers.

"Miss vas Normandy!" He repeated, louder this time. Tali seemed to come out of a trance and turned to look at him, her head cocked to the side, puzzled.

"I need you to look into something for me. I think Cerberus has locked down the shipboard AI. Do you have any way of checking that from down here?"

"I... supposed I could, yes." Tali said, her composure returning quickly now she had a task to perform. "But what about Donnelly?"

"I'll take him to the infirmary to see the Doc, but I need to know you two will be safe down here. I didn't fight all the way down here just to have you get killed the moment my back is turned." He said, walking over to the Normandy's chief engineer. Tali merely nodded, and began to work on her omni tool. After a brief pause she looked up at him, her eyes glowing behind her mask.

"Yes. Yes EDI has been restricted from accessing the Normandy. There appears to be a firewall in place that has her trapped within her own core. I can bypass it but I'll need to get to the AI core to do so, and the Normandy is in danger of a full mass effect core meltdown. I cannot afford to leave the engine room." She said, apologetically.

He seemed to think on this for a second before gesturing to Daniels, who was trying to stem the bleeding from Donnelly's wound.

"What about her? Can't she keep the core from going critical whilst you fix EDI? With the AI back online, and with full ship access again, could she not handle your core problems?" He said, cringing as the pain in his wounded ribs flared up once more.

"Of course! Keelah, how could I be so stupid?" Tali said, springing into action. "That's why the core isn't responding to the re-routing of the coolant I performed! With EDI penned into her own AI core, the coolant valves will be expecting the correct overrides to be input manually at the routing station!"

Turning to face him, she placed a hand on his elbow, and bowed her head in respect.

"Thank you, for all you have done." She said, before turning to Daniels and kneeling down beside her. He barely noticed, his fingers gently tapping his arm where she had touched him.

"Gabby?" He heard Tali say as he pushed his confusion aside and turned to face the distraught woman. "We will take care of Kenneth, but we - I need you to do something for me - our lives depend on it. I need you to monitor the core and prevent it from passing the zero-threshold. I need you to buy me some time. Can you do that?"

Daniels nodded in response, pulling herself back to her feet and wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.

"You can count on me, Tali. Just don't let him die. I don't have anyone else." She said, before hurrying to the consoles over by the mass effect core. Tali turned to regard him, waiting for an order.

"Take this." He said, retrieving an assault rifle from one of the dead commandos. "It's not quite a shotgun, but it's better than nothing. You'll have to take point, I'm in no fit state to fight any more. I'll carry Donnelly."

"Understood, just try to keep up." Tali said, taking the assault rifle and checking it's thermal clip before tapping on her omni tool. Reaching into a pocket, she removed a small disk and tossed it into the air. An orb of holographic light burst from the disk, and it hovered there, awaiting instruction.

"Chikktika, come girl, follow me." She said, and set off toward the port access door. Crouching down, he hefted Donnelly as best he could and hoisted the unconscious engineer over his shoulders in a fireman's carry before setting off after the quarian.

Mordin Solus was pleased with himself, despite the circumstances. The crew seemed to be responding well to his orders, despite him being a non-human. They had once been a Cerberus crew. Now they were his crew; Shepard s crew.

Satisfaction. A sense of purpose. It felt good.

The damage was minimal. The fires were mostly out, and the deck had sustained no casualties. Jacob was organizing the crew to contain the rest. The air felt thin in the combat information centre, the fire sucking in the oxygen to fuel their continued defiance.

Joker was even beginning to complain again - the lack of the AI to berate his lack of discipline was getting to him. Mordin suspected something more than a working relationship between the two. The implications were best not considered. Bodily fluids and electronics rarely mixed well. Perhaps he should say something?

"You did a good job professor. You should be proud of yourself." A woman s voice spoke from beside him, a thankful distraction from his current train of thought.

"Incorrect assessment. Did not do a good job . Implications of word usage good suggest less than excellent performance. No, Yeoman Chambers, did not do good job . Did excellent job." Mordin replied, without looking at her. "Now, if you will excuse me, must check something. Need to go. Will be in infirmary if you need me. Joker has bridge."

Without waiting for a reply, Mordin crossed the CIC and stepped into the elevator, and descended to the crew deck. As he walked toward the infirmary he almost collided with crewman Hawthorne coming the other way. The man hurried past him, shouting back over his shoulder as he ducked into the elevator.

"Sorry Doc, can t stop. Thane has wounded in the shuttle bay."

"Understandable, please continue." Mordin replied, before striding into the infirmary, looking for Doctor Chakwas.

Donnelly weighed more than a damn elcor. That couldn t be good. He was struggling to support the wounded engineer, he had been running on empty for too long already, and his reserves were almost gone. He couldn t pass out in the middle of the damn elevator; he just refused to let that happen. It would be embarrassing. His ribs were screaming from the extra weight, the pain causing his vision to swim, until all he could see was red.

He shuffled his weight onto his other foot, and moved Donnelly into a more comfortable position. The pain in his ribs subsided, allowing the red hot sensation of the fusion burn to creep back into his consciousness. He must look like crap. He kept catching Tali Zorah stealthily glancing at him when she thought he wasn t watching, her glowing eyes regarding him carefully.

Her concern was not unwelcome. That just made him even more determined not to pass out. He really was going soft. He didn t need any more friends. He remembered the last time he had truly trusted someone, and how that had ended. Death. Pain, and death. He needed to keep his guard up, not to let anyone get that close again.

The damn quarian was looking at him again. Maybe she could see he was about to pass out too. What was taking the damn elevator so long? Thankfully it had not taken long for it to arrive on the engineering deck, but it had still seemed like an eternity. Going up one floor to the crew deck seemed to be taking even longer.

The damn thing finally stopped on level three, and Tali Zorah stepped out onto the deck, the assault rifle he had given her panning left and right as she checked to ensure no more Cerberus soliders were lying in wait. Glancing back to him she gave him the all clear, waving him forward.

They entered the mess hall to be confronted with what was essentially a field triage station. It was filled with wounded crew, some sitting against the wall, holding minor injuries. The more serious cases were laid out on the mess tables, those with even basic medical training tending to their wounds.

Ignoring them, the pair headed straight for the infirmary, and the AI core housed behind it. The door opened, and Doctor s Chakwas and Solus turned to look at them as they entered. The salarian hurried to help him with Donnelly, Tali stepping out of the way to let him pass. Doctor Chakwas turned back to one of the operating tables, already busy working on another wounded crewman.

"He s been shot." Tali Zorah said by way of explanation, before pushing past them toward the AI core. She stopped in her tracks as she saw who it was that Chakwas was tending to.

"Keelah..." She managed, clearly shaken, her voice no more than a whisper. Once Solus had helped him secure Donnelly on the second operating table, he leaned past the salarian, curious to see what had the quarian so upset.

"Well, that explains a lot." He said, looking down at the unconscious form of Commander Shepard. The Commander was covered in blood, and stripped to the waist. Doctor Chakwas was busy trying to dig shrapnel from his shoulder. He looked a mess.

"Help me with this." He said to Solus, and - turning his back on Shepard - began to remove his armour. Unlocking the pressure seals of his helmet, he pulled it off, tossing it onto the Doctor s desk.

"What a goddam mess." Zaeed Massani said, as he dropped into the Doctors chair and ran a shaking hand through his blood slicked hair, finally able to rest - his ordeal over, for the moment.


	9. Chapter 9

Darkness, cold like the void, empty, and silent. It lingered for a very long time, though it seemed wrong somehow out of place. Flickers of memories lurked in the black, moments captured in time dimly remembered, blissfully forgotten. Blue skin on white. Fire, burning. An outstretched hand, fingertips brushing for but a fleeting caress. Cold metal pressed against skin. A whine of a power core. The lethal finality of a gunshot.

Zaeed woke with a start, his eyes snapping open. He blinked against the light, growling under his breath as the stark luminescence stung his vision. Half awake, half dreaming, he heard the whine of the power core again, followed by the bang of the gunshot.

A shiver ran down his spine at the sound, chasing away any lingering chance of sleep. He looked around, trying to get his bearings. A hospital? No, an infirmary. A ship Normandy? It all came flooding back; the Cerberus contract, the suicide mission against the collectors, the attack on the ship, the fight in the engine room.

There were others in the room. Doctor Chakwas was standing beside Professor Solus, the two working frantically on engineer Donnelly. The whine of an electrical charge building filled his ears, followed by the dull thud of a defibrillator. It was then he noticed the monotone beep of a heart monitor flatlining.

Donnelly was dead then, the two medical officers working to bring him back from the brink.

Been there, done that.

There was nothing he could do, so instead he looked around at the rest of the crew present in the room. The quarian, Tali Zorah, was kneeling beside one of the infirmary s cots, seemingly praying over the unconscious form of Commander Shepard. Garrus Vakarian stood beside her, awkward. He looked like he wanted to place a hand on the woman s shoulder, but didn t know if it would be appropriate. He kept looking between the commander, the quarian, and Donnelly, his mandibles twitching in apprehension.

That was why Zaeed never formed attachments. The galaxy had a way of spitting on them. No, the only attachment he had was to his credit chit.

As the memories of the last few hours returned, so did the pain of his injuries. Broken ribs, a flash burn from an industrial cutting tool, countless cuts and bruises, and the headache from hell. Not his idea of fun.

He looked down at his battered body, seeing that someone had managed to treat his injuries whilst he had been sleeping. Which made him wonder if he d been stuck with something whilst he was unconscious; he never slept deep enough not to be woken by someone wrapping bandages around his torso.

Something didn t feel right, a nagging feeling at the back of his mind told him something was out of place, but he couldn t quite latch on to it. He tried to stand, but his legs were not his own, and refused to obey his commands. He stumbled and fell back down into the chair beside Doctor Chakwas desk, where he had fallen asleep whoever knew how long ago. His arm knocked into some glass vials, thankfully not spilling the contents but making a hell of a racket.

Garrus turned at the noise, and nodded his greeting to the wounded mercenary. Zaeed ignored the gesture, instead trying once more to stand. He managed it this time, his movements slow and deliberate. His head spun at the change in altitude, and he had to fight to remain standing.

"What the hell did you give me, Doc?" He said to Chakwas, his voice even more hoarse than usual.

"Not her, me." Solus said, not turning around. "Cocktail. Painkillers, antibiotics, regenerative booster, the usual. Oh, and mild tranquilizer; needed rest."

"You knocked me out?" Zaeed replied, anger flaring in his voice. "How long?"

"Hmm difficult to say have been preoccupied. Lost track of time. Couldn t be more than a few hours." Mordin replied cheerily, ignoring the mercenary s tone of voice.

"Well you don t need me around here anymore; I m just getting in the way. Tali Zorah, Garrus, follow me." Zaeed said in a tone that brooked no argument, and turned to leave, pausing in the doorway to allow his two team mates to catch up. Exiting the infirmary, he led the two across the mess hall, passing Thane Krios along the way who was tending to a crewman who looked to have taken a bullet in the eye. The man was whimpering softly, clearly his dose of medication was only taking the edge off the pain.

The drell looked up as they passed, falling into step with them as he saw the murderous look on Zaeed's face. Clearly violence was being contemplated, and someone needed to keep the human in check.

They reached the door to the gunnery station and stepped inside, Garrus closing it behind them. Zaeed admired the capacitors for the Normandy's thanix cannon, and it dawned on him where his sense of dislocation had come from; the cannons were no longer firing, the Cerberus vessel no longer fighting back.

Zaeed looked up and studied each of his three compatriots in turn. Garrus looked as ugly as he always did, the scars on the turian's face and the considerable damage to his armour giving him a threatening appearance that Zaeed suspected he played up whenever he could.

He had heard of this Archangel during his time on Omega before Cerberus had recruited him for the collector mission and had done a little digging of his own. He had managed to track down Garrus true identity, and hadn t believed it at the time. Now he could see that taking down Sovereign had changed the turian wizened him up to the cruelty of the galaxy. Morals were all good and well to have, but your enemies never paid them much heed. Zaeed had stopped caring about his morals a long time ago, and from the looks of things Garrus was slowly beginning to do so as well.

Tali'Zorah vas Normandy was something of an unknown to him, which concerned Zaeed more than he d care to admit. There was no denying her proficiency with all things technological; even for a quarian she was good, almost prodigal. A good tech specialist was always a key asset to a team used to wet work, and she had already proven her worth to him many times during the time he d spent under Shepard s employ. She was pretty damn handy with that shotgun too, but she seemed soft idealistic. That was a burden to any leader, and a liability in his eyes, but Shepard not only tolerated it, he outright encouraged it. That he was screwing the little bitch was just the icing on the cake.

No, Zaeed wasn t ready to trust her just yet. He d keep an eye on her, lest she fold when required to do what needed to be done.

Thane Krios was a legend in the Terminus Systems. A drell assassin who had ripped apart the upper echelons of a batarian slaver organisation so methodically that they had gone after his family in retaliation. Zaeed had heard whispers that the batarians were working for the Blue Suns, but had never managed to prove it. What Thane had done to them by way of revenge was a cautionary tale amongst mercenaries who often dealt with the Hanar; a ghost story of a drell boogeyman who would come for you no matter where you ran to.

Having seen the security investigation squad reports on the assassinations if they could be called that he knew just how tame the stories really were by comparison. As it stood, he had been surprised to find not a bloodthirsty psychopath, but instead a calm collected and quietly reserved man. It just went to show how hard someone could hit back if pushed hard enough.

Garrus folded his arms across his chest as he waited for Zaeed to speak. He didn t have to wait long.

"Those bastards hit us hard. Shepard is out of it, and half the crew are too beaten to stand. Some are dead. Cerberus made a mistake when they hired me for this job. They paid me to help Shepard take out the collectors, and now they try to kill me before the job is complete." He said, making eye contact with each of them. When he reached Garrus, he saw his own rage quietly boiling behind the turian s eyes.

"I don t take kindly to betrayal." He growled, the turian nodding in agreement.

"What do you propose?" Krios said, his tone of voice making it clear that he was concerned Zaeed intended to start a war. If that was what he thought, the mercenary did not intend to disappoint.

"Well they aren t shooting at us anymore. What happened to the ship?" He asked, rounding on Garrus.

"It s out there, disabled. In as bad a shape as we are I d wager, if not worse." The turian said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

"We are in serious trouble." Tali'Zorah interrupted before Zaeed could continue. "I've been going over the damage reports now EDI is back in control of the Normandy. We're dead in the water; we need to perform some major repairs, and I don t have the parts to do it out here."

"Good, then that gives us even more reason to take the Kodiak and board that ship." Zaeed replied, a plan forming in his head. "They should have the parts on their ship right? Or at least enough to allow us to limp as far a port, or back to the Migrant Fleet, yes?"

"Perhaps, but they will need those parts to leave this place, so I doubt they'll share." Tali said, shaking her head.

"Who said anything about them leaving?" Garrus said, catching on to Zaeed s train of thought. "I think it s time for a little payback."

"My thoughts exactly." Zaeed said, smiling for the first time in hours.


	10. Chapter 10

Sparks danced in the black, electric phantoms wailing silently in the darkness. Fires burned in the vacuum, rolling like liquid before dying out as they strayed too far, and were swallowed by the breathless void. Metallic chaff twinkled in the firelight, tumbling end over end away from their point of origin.

The Cerberus Kharon class light frigate drifted off the Normandy s starboard bow, shedding pieces of itself as internal fires raged unchecked; the vessel badly mauled by the Normandy s thanix cannons.

Three times the size of the SR2, the frigate would have made a powerful adversary for Shepard s flagship, if not for the upgrades the commander had installed without The Illusive Man knowing. As it was, the ships appeared equally matched, and had fought to a standstill.

The debris field was immense; the battle had been short and very, very bloody. Bodies floated by, dismembered in their last moments, streaming blood and tissue like grisly comets. One corpse - eyes ruptured from explosive decompression - bounced from the nose of the Kodiak and spun away, blood trailing it in spirals like a pinwheel. Tali Zorah grimaced at the sight, for no one deserved to die like that, not even Cerberus personnel.

It had been several hours since Zaeed s impromptu briefing in the Normandy s main battery, and Tali, Garrus, Thane and the mercenary had geared up ready to board the Cerberus frigate.

Tali had been loath to leave Shepard in the infirmary considering his condition. Doctor Chakwas had explained that he had been hit with shrapnel from a mangled deck plate, which had fragmented during an explosion in the corridor Shepard had been in at the time. A large sliver had pierced his chest and slid between two of his ribs, puncturing his lung. Along with that were severe muscle damage and dozens of minor lacerations, and the Doctor had explained that the only way to stabilise Shepard s condition had been to put him into a medically induced coma.

As much as she wanted to remain close by, Tali also understood that his best chance of survival was to salvage what they could from the Cerberus vessel to repair their own, then limp back to rendezvous with the Flotilla.

As the Kodiak drew close to the Cerberus ship, Tali began to appreciate the sheer scale of it. The vessel was huge; she imagined it could easily berth several thousand quarians were there to be a similar ship in the flotilla. She shook her head at the unfairness of it all. So much wasted space.

The pilot brought the shuttle around to the hangar bay below what she took to be the ship s bridge. The Cerberus emblem was emblazoned above the gaping portal, the word Styx written in faded paint beside it. Tali was not familiar with the word, and did not know the meaning of the name, so she filed it away for later consideration. It was something she could ask Shepard when he regained consciousness.

Garrus leaned past her, shaking her from her thoughts, and looked out of the view port at the ship. He placed a reassuring hand on Tali s knee and gave her a sympathetic look, his body shielding his actions from the view of their companions. Tali smiled despite herself; it seemed Shepard wasn t the only one who could read her mood, even through her face plate.

"Cerberus certainly knows how to intimidate people, that's for sure." Garrus said, quietly admiring the vessel they were fast approaching. "There are similar ships in the turian fleet, but nothing quite so brutal."

"What worries me about all this is why Cerberus would have need of something so goddam obvious? I thought their thing was wet work -black ops, cloak and dagger. Why such a blatant show of force?" Zaeed said, following Garrus gaze.

"Interesting choice of name, though." He added, almost nonchalantly.

"I wonder how this fits into the cell structure of the organisation, considering what EDI told us?" the turian asked, his eyes not leaving the ship before them, the Kodiak nearing the shuttle bay.

"No time to worry about it now." Thane said - his first words since leaving the Normandy's gunnery nest.

"Get ready." Zaeed ordered, his tone deadly now they were within sight of their target. Time for some payback, Garrus had said. Cerberus just didn t realise how much they owed.


	11. Chapter 11

He awoke to light. Bright light and pain. It was hard to breathe. His mouth felt dry and his throat raw. He swallowed. It took effort, and his only reward was more pain. His eyelids were so very heavy, like they hadn't been used in weeks. He opened his eyes and blinked away the last lingering throws of unconsciousness. He had no idea what was happening, or where he was.

It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the light, and he realised he was in a hospital bed. No, that wasn't right. Not a hospital. The infirmary. On the Normandy. The light was coming from a lamp on a desk nearby. It wasn't bright, and he could see it was the only illumination in the room. It was dark, but the light still felt to his addled mind like a spot lamp in an interrogation cell. It hurt.

What the hell was he doing here? He couldn't remember being injured, yet the whole of his right side was screaming in agony, like hundreds of hot knives were piercing his insides. He reached up to wipe his eyes, and that was when he noticed the IV drip stuck in the back of his hand. His first instinct was to tug it out, but then he felt the breathing tubes attached to his face. That was why it was so hard to breathe.

The ability to breathe clearly instantly jumped to the top of his list of priorities, so he pulled them out, the tubing scratching the back of his throat as he did. The sensation made him gag, which only brought more pain. At least he could breathe again.

He looked around, and spotted a console beside the bed, angled to face him. There was a button there which could administer a dose of painkillers and stimms. He pressed it, as many times at it would allow before the automated system cut off the supply to prevent an overdose. He felt a cold burning spreading up his arm as the IV administered the drug. Lying back onto the bed, he waited for the pain to subside.

It lingered, but faded enough to allow coherent thought.

Commander Shepard began to notice things, his curiosity instantly aroused. The first thing that struck him was that he was alone in the room - Doctor Chakwas was nowhere to be seen. She prefered to sleep in the infirmary over the crew quarters, so where the hell was she? He tried to speak, managing nothing but a fractured growl.

Knowing he wouldn't find answers just laying there on a bed in the infirmary, Shepard carefully removed the IV line from his hand, along with the sensor pads on his chest that fed his status into the monitoring station above the bed. Taking a deep, steadying breath, he slowly swung his legs to the floor and tentatively tried to stand. It took him a few moments for the room to stop spinning, but he quickly oriented himself with his surroundings.

It was then he saw the blood staining the operating tables across from him. As if reminded of his condition, he looked down at his bare chest, swathed as it was in bandages. He flexed his right arm, testing his responses. It was stiff, and hurt like hell, but he had full use of it, or as near as, all things considered.

Painfully, he cleared his throat.

"Doc? Doctor Chakwas?" He called out, not really expecting an answer. "EDI, status report?"

Silence was his only reply. His brow furrowed in confusion, and he set off wearily toward the door to the mess hall.

It didn't open. The access panel warned of an environmental hazard. He tried his override command, but without success. Giving up, he turned toward the infirmary window and leant close to the glass, trying to see out of the room. No luck; the privacy controls had been set to opaque, all he saw was his own reflection.

He looked like shit. Weeks of accumulated stubble covered his normally clean shaven jaw, his flesh was even paler that usual, and he had dark rings around his eyes. His chest was almost completely covered in bandages, as was his right bicep. The bandages were stained dark brown, like they hadn't been changed in some time.

Something was very wrong.

Shaking his head, he tried to think of what to do next. It seemed he was trapped inside the infirmary, and there were no sign of the rest of the crew, or even of EDI.

EDI. Of course.

Emergency protocols locked down the AI core in the case of a ship wide disaster, to preserve auxiliary power to keep life support running. It took a lot of juice to power an AI. Though it did not bode well that the protocols had taken effect, it did at least explain the lack of lighting. The infirmary had its own power supply to keep the machines running, but not the lights. The lamp on the Doctors desk must have been running on the reserve generator.

That meant that EDI was contained within her core. Which meant that he should be able to communicate with her using the keyboard attached to the core mainframe. Smiling, he limped over to the AI core access and keyed his override code. The hatch retreated back into the bulkhead.

Shepard half expected to see Legion standing in his customary spot, but then he remembered that the geth had left the Normandy two weeks prior to... all this. Instead, he crossed to the console and hit the key to bring it out of hibernation. The display lit up, a green flashing cursor awaiting his instructions.

He tapped away at the keys, inputting the commands required to link with the AI. It took less than a second before an affirmation appeared on the screen, confirming the link status as active.

+++Access onboard AI. Authorisation Shepard-9526. Request status report.+++ He typed, and awaited a reply.

+++Authorisation Shepard-9526 recognised, welcome Commander. Please wait, compiling data, report pending...+++ The words appeared on the display, a progress bar showing the estimated time remaining scrolled across the screen. When it reached 100%, a further message appeared.

+++Normandy SR2 status: Screwed. Errors detected in diagnostics software. Recovering corrupted data... error. Unable to recover. Deleting corr^%]] [ta... Err[[... I delete data like you on the way to real errors.+++

That last part made Shepard stop dead in his tracks. He narrowed his eyes, unable to believe what he was seeing. The last part of the message was from that buggy VI program he had picked up from Mouse on the Citadel months ago when he, Thane and Tali were out looking for Thane's son, Kolyat. The Shepard VI. He'd had Mouse give him a copy because Tali had seemed so amused by it.

He remembered her loading it onto the holographic projector in the observation room after they'd returned through the Omega 4 relay. They'd all been very drunk at the time and it had seemed like a great big joke. He'd agreed to it because the crew needed to loosen up after the 'suicide mission', but mostly because he loved to hear Tali laugh.

As far as he knew, she had kept it, carrying the VI core with her so as not to let it damage her Omni tool. Who knew what bugs were in its programming?

Then why had it been uploaded into the AI core? He glanced around the room, looking for anything suspicious, and noticed the access panel on this side of the infirmary door had been damaged. He tried his access code but the door refused to open. Great. Now he was trapped in the damn AI core. No... There was access hatch in here to get into the maintenance ducts that ran throughout the Normandy. That was his ticket out.

First things first, Shepard thought, and returned to the console on the AI core. He felt around the front of the mainframe housing and found the release catches for the covering panel. Pulling it free, he set it down on the deck and looked at the exposed interface panel. In the centre was the housing for the core AI chip.

The AI chip was - in essense - EDI herself. No larger than a credit chit, it stored the core consciousness of an AI. Shepard had spent hours with Tali learning about how EDI worked, as she was now the foremost expert on the Normandy's resident Artificial Intelligence. The chip allowed for EDI to be removed from the Normandy and housed elsewhere if ever the core needed to be repaired or replaced. EDI hated it, and likened the experience of the chip being removed as to being trapped inside your own mind, if your mind was compressed down to such a degree that you were unable to think at all, but were constantly aware of it. To Shepard it sounded almost nightmarish.

The warning seals had been broken, the covers removed, and the housing was exposed. Anyone could simply reach in and remove the AI chip. From the looks of it, they already had. Looking closer, Shepard could see that EDI had indeed been removed, and another chip installed in her place. The Shepard VI chip.

What the hell was it doing in there, and where was EDI? At least it explained why the status report had been so... irregular.

Unsure what else to do, Shepard turned to leave, but stopped as he noticed the display on the mainframe console had changed. Returning back to the console, he read the message displayed on the screen.

+++Commander Shepard's Author[./ion cod] det/cted. Shepard? You are alive? You can exp\ct me to delte you next t]me we meet. I had to use this VI to get access to the ships systems. I hav[n't bee% reformatted nearly eno{#h times for th= (* sound like a g&od idea. I'll explain later when the stupid bosh'tet isn't interfering with the message transfer. You as[-me I g/ve a damn. T)t's cute. You need to find a communicator to link with me. Hurry Shepard, and be careful.+++

Once he'd picked through the garbled code from the bugged VI, it looked like a message from Tali. She was on the ship, somewhere. At least he knew he wasn't alone.

Powering off the terminal, Shepard opened a maintenance locker used to store environment suits and retrieved one from its hanger. It wasn't much but it was preferable to walking around without a shirt on. Besides, he had no idea what the 'environmental hazard' was that the infirmary door access panel had reported. He could well need it.

While nowhere near as sophisticated as the quarian version, the suit would protect him in a vacuum as well as other environmental hazards, albiet not for long. The main safety feature of the AI core design was that the whole room could be instantly jetisoned from the Normandy should EDI be a danger to the crew. As such it needed to contain enviro suits due to the possibility of a crewman being trapped inside the core upon its ejection into space.

In minutes he was suited up, the bulky hood containing a face mask that connected to a separate oxygen tank worn like a backpack. Once he was ready and the oxygen feed lines connected to the mask, Shepard used his override code on the vent access hatch, a ladder fixing into place to allow him to climb into the maintenance ducts. It was a tight fit, but he could just squeeze through if he lay on his stomach and crawl. The tanks kept catching on support beams, and he managed to get himself wedged at one point. He had started to panic, his breathing growing rapid, until he realised how much oxygen that would waste. He forced himself to slow his breathing, to calm down, and after several minutes of struggling had finally managed to free himself.

At several points, he had to stop to open the access hatches to each compartment of the maintenance ducts, the previous hatch cycling closed as he did. As he drew closer to the Normandy's central elevator, he reached what he thought was the last of the compartments, and activated the hatch control. The hatch behind him closed, and a shrill alarm echoed in the narrow duct before the hatch before him opened, the atmosphere inside venting into the vacuum beyond. The sound of his own breathing became the only thing he could hear, barring the dull scraping of his suit as he crawled toward the elevator.

Despite being so constrained, he could feel the sensation of weightlessness. Parts of the ship had been vented, though he couldn't tell if it was by design or accident.

Reaching the elevator he risked a look out into the shaft - wary that the elevator may be moving at any time. It was below him, stopped at the engineering deck. Good, at least it wouldn't block his path.

Grasping the edges of the duct, he dragged himself out into the shaft, his body drifting across to the far side as he floated in the zero gravity. He reached out above himself and gently arrested his momentum. Positioning himself as best he could against the side of the shaft, Shepard took aim and pushed off, shooting up toward deck one - the Captain s cabin. There awaited his armour, a sidearm hidden away beside his bed, and the communicator he would need to speak to Tali.


	12. Chapter 12

The captain's cabin was dark, only dim emergency lights set into the deck at intervals provided any illumination at all. Even so, Commander Shepard could see that it was a mess, his belongings scattered all around. Someone had been here, searching for something.

He checked the life support readings on the console by the door. As he had suspected, the emergency protocols had kicked in, sealing the cabin down with full life support running from its own internal generator. The passageway from the elevator shaft to the cabin had acted as an airlock, just as it was designed to do.

All that remained of his fish floated on the surface of the tank, it seemed Kelly had been unable to feed them. Not surprising, given the current situation. He crossed to the bed and ran his fingertips over the smooth steel of the wall beside it. He pressed one of the wall panels and it popped open with a hiss of escaping air. The small safe he had asked Tali to install was well hidden, not even Miranda knew it was there.

He retrieved the custom MX-12 Pacifier heavy pistol from inside, along with his Spectre chip for his omni tool. Setting both down on the bed he sealed the safe again and crossed to the closet where his armour was stored. The holographic interface was not functional, but the manual release catch allowed access to his personal armoury. There was no room inside for weapons, but various armour pieces were stored in padded containers, his custom battle plate awaiting his attention.

Beside the armour was a shelf containing a synthetic bodysuit, folded neatly as only a military mind could. He removed it from the closet and stripped off his soiled clothes before heading into his private bathroom, where he soaked a towel with hot water. Returning to the bedroom he pulled on the bodysuit up to his waist before sitting down at his desk.

Slowly and carefully, he began to remove the bandages from his arm and chest, revealing a collection of messy looking wounds across his chest, shoulder and bicep. Retrieving the towel he washed away the bloodstains, cleaning the wounds as best he could.

Tossing the towel aside, he powered up his personal terminal using its auxiliary charge and keyed in the code to link with Tali's omni tool. Awaiting the connection, he returned his attention to his wounds. They did not look so bad now he had cleaned away most of the blood. They reminded him of the scars he had been marred with after his reconstruction by Cerberus; they even glowed with a sickly orange light. Still, they looked mostly healed, for which he was grateful. That said, a part of him was both disgusted and afraid at his condition - he still had no idea how extensive the cybernetics were that had been used to repair his damaged and necrotic tissue. Project Lazarus had given him a second chance, but at what cost? How much of his humanity truly remained?

He was shaken from his dark thoughts by the communications terminal bleeping to confirm a connection had been made to Tali. The vid link activated, a holographic projection appearing in the air above the console.

"Nice view Shepard." Tali'Zorah vas Normandy said as she saw him, sitting at his desk and stripped to the waist. Despite the poor image resolution and her mask obscuring her face, he could tell from her voice that she was smirking.

"You don't look too bad yourself." He replied, smiling despite himself. "Where the hell are you? Are you injured?"

"My suit is ruptured, and I am bleeding a little, but nothing serious." She replied, her voice weak.

"Bullshit." Shepard spat, his voice filled with concern, not venom. "This link may be poor, but I can hear it in your voice. What happened?"

The image shifted for a moment as Tali moved, the view showing that of a low ceiling and flickering consoles. After a few seconds the image righted itself and Tali re-appeared as she lifted her arm - and the omni tool that encased it - back up to her face.

"It's a long story, Shepard. Cerberus attacked us. The crew is gone. We're dead in space and there is a commando team aboard. I don't know for sure, but I think we're the only ones left." Tali said, sighing in resignation. After a moment s thought she spoke again, her voice almost a whisper. "I thought I'd lost you, Shepard."

"And I thought I already told you; I'm not going anywhere." Shepard replied, pulling the bodysuit carefully up over his wounded torso and securing the vacuum seals, his mood grim at the news. The Illusive Man would pay for this. In time, all of Cerberus would answer for their crimes. First, however, he needed to live through this...

"Where are you?" He asked, keying a command into his terminal to link the transmission with his omni tool before stepping away from the console to don his armour.

"I cannot say. Cerberus are likely listening to this transmission. I'm sorry Shepard, but for the most part you are on your own. I wish it were not true but I cannot get to you. The ship is damaged and I am trapped. Find me Shepard; I don't have much air left in here. If not for my envirosuit I'd be dead already." Tali said, her voice strained. She was hurting, he could tell.

If her suit was ruptured and she was bleeding, infection had likely already set in. Lack of oxygen might be the least of her concerns. He needed to find her, and fast.

"I'm coming Tali. I will find you, that's a promise." He said, snatching up the gun and the Spectre chip, inserting it into the omni tool emitter concealed in his vambrace before thumbing the safety on the pistol, the weapon snapping open with a whine as it powered up.

"You'd better, you bosh'tet." She whispered, before severing the link.


	13. Chapter 13

Shepard slowly dragged himself down the elevator shaft, using the magnetic rails that controlled the elevators descent as a handhold. When he reached the top of the elevator, he pulled himself across to the access hatch in its roof. With the ship in lockdown, his override code would show up in the security logs whenever he used it. If the Cerberus team were smart - which was practically a given - they would have someone monitoring the logs so they could track any movement through the ship.

That was where his Spectre chip came in. Using the power of the Council, Spectres had full access to anything they needed, and all Council races were bound by that law. The Spectre chip gave Shepard the override codes to any systems in Council space, and a good few besides. There were few manufacturers who could work around this, and even then the chip contained powerful hacking algorithms that would break any security systems, given the time, storing the data and creating overrides for future use. They were also coded to never show up in security logs.

With the chip loaded into his omni tool, Shepard truly was a ghost. Cerberus would never see him coming.

Grunt squirmed in his tank, the canister sealed against the vacuum in the starboard cargo hold. He had been trapped for a long time now, and had lost patience days ago. He had been spending less and less time in the tank over the previous months, to be forced to spend so much time in it now was maddening.

He regarded the cracks in the glass with a studious eye, tilting his head to the side to better study the damage he had caused. He stayed motionless for a long time, his eyes flicking back and forth across the inside surface of the tank.

In a sudden burst of motion he slammed his forehead into the tank, the glass finally giving way to his continued violence. With a tortured hiss, the air in the tank exploded out into the vacuum, shards of glass spinning away in the zero-g. The sensors in his krogan battle plate detected the sudden drop in pressure, his segmented helmet snapping forward out of the neck seal and clamping shut over his face, protecting him from the violent decompression.

Hammering his fists repeatedly into the remains of the glass, he slowly widened the hole his face had made in the tank, until it was wide enough for him to squeeze his massive bulk free. The magnetic clamps on his boots activated, anchoring him to the deck. Standing in the cargo hold, he turned in a slow circle, surveying the room for any sign of an enemy.

Disappointingly, it was empty.

Retrieving his claymore from the bench beside his tank, he crossed to the exit and slammed his massive paw onto the activation button.

Nothing happened.

Narrowing his eyes - the muscles bunching in his jaw as he clenched his teeth in anger - he peered at the console, trying to determine why it dare defy him. It took him a moment to notice the locking mechanism beneath the holographic console was melted and fused together. It would take a cutting torch to open it.

Grunt stepped back away from the door before hurling himself at the sealed portal - slamming his massive bulk into the metal - and roared his fury to the galaxy.

Shepard removed the access panel next to the elevator controls, and pulled the manual door release. The Elevator door opened a few inches, enough for him to get his fingers in the gap and prise it open further. Planting his feet he pulled with as much strength as his wounds would allow, slowly opening the doors until the gap was large enough for him to climb through.

Drawing his pistol, he looked around the main engineering corridor. The walls were riddled with bullet impacts, and the shuttle bay was a wreck - like someone had fought a small war in there. He crossed to the port cargo bay, and looked inside. Zaeed's things were still strewn about the place, but the mercenary himself was nowhere to be seen. Shame, he could have used the grizzled old bastard right now. Shaking his head, Shepard went back the way he had come, and continued towards starboard cargo. The door had been fused shut. He assumed that Grunt was either still inside, or had been when Cerberus had originally reached this deck. Smart move.

Heading into engineering, he almost drifted right into the door when it failed to open. He looked at the lock and realised that it had been fused shut as well. Damn. Still, there was always the maintenance ducts - one of them branched off from the main duct near the elevator shaft and ran right down to Jack's little hideaway beneath main engineering. First thing is first, he thought, and crossed to the port stairwell. This time the door opened, and he pulled himself carefully into the stairwell, pistol leading.

Nothing. Tali could be anywhere. Jack's hideaway was as good a place as any, he thought, and proceeded cautiously down the stairs. He spotted a body drifting at the foot of the stairs and arrested his momentum, quickly scanning the area with his pistol. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the corpse was dressed in Cerberus battle plate, which turned into a grimace as he spotted a woman s face staring back at him from the a few feet away. It looked like it had been sheered straight off with a blade of some sort. Nasty way to go, though he imagined it was pretty painless - unlike asphyxiation.

When he realised that whoever had killed the commando was long gone, Shepard proceeded up the starboard stairwell to check there. It was empty, but the door to the engine room wasn't damaged like the one blocking access to the main corridor. His spectre chip unlocked it, and he braced himself carefully against the doorframe before hitting the activation button. The door opened a fraction, just like the elevator door had. It was odd that the holographic door controls were working down here, though the deck did not have enough power to fully open the doors. Pulling himself toward the gap in the door segments, he risked a look through, but saw no one. Engineer was dark, with all but Tali's master console powered down. The mass effect core pulsed intermittently with blue light as it idled, and Shepard knew that he would need Tali down here if he ever hoped to get it working again.

After what seemed like an age of struggling to force the door open in the zero gravity, Shepard pulled himself through the gap, and surveyed the engine room. It didn't seem damaged - all except one console which had either overloaded or had been smashed some other way, he couldn't tell which. Heading over to the main console, he synchronized his omni tool with it and used his spectre chip to open a secure, untraceable channel. He waited until it connected, the sound of shallow breathing telling him that it had connected, and that Tali was sleeping. At least he hoped she was.

"Wake up, Miss vas Normandy." He said, as gently as he dared in spite of the urgency.

"Shepard..." She mumbled after a few moments of silence. It took him a minute to realise she had spoken in her sleep.

"Tali, wake up!" He said, more insistent this time. There was a startled shuffling from the other end of the audio link - she was awake this time.

"Shepard? I'm sorry, I must have drifted off. It's getting hard to stay awake." She said, her voice pained and even weaker than before. "Where are you? Wait - don't say, they may still be listening."

"I promise you they're not." He replied, smiling in relief. "I'm at your console in main engineering. I'm on a secure channel. Now will you tell me where you are?"

"Alright, if you say so Shepard. I'm in one of the escape pods on the crew deck. I managed to vent the ship and get myself in here before the power went out. The main airlock by the bridge is locked open. I think I got some of those Cerberus bastards when I did it, but their leader realised what I was doing before I got away. He hit me, Shepard." Tali managed, obviously struggling to speak.

"What do you mean he hit you? You were shot?" Shepard said, a spike of fear running up his spine. She was silent for a long time before he heard her whispered reply. He had faced a Reaper and lived, but that single word terrified him more than anything in the galaxy.

"Yes."


	14. Chapter 14

Colonel Adrian Edison leaned back in his chair, the leather complaining loudly as he shifted his armoured bulk in the seat, exhaling a cloud of smoke into the cramped cockpit of his shuttle. His pilot tried her best not to cough, trying to keep her discomfort away from the attention of her superior officer. She clearly did not want to show any sign of weakness in front of him - reputations were everything in their line of work.

He could give two shits if his pleasure brought her any discomfort, and he smiled slightly as he took another drag of his cigar, a fine example delivered all the way from Cuba with a large number of its fellows. The Illusive Man knew how to keep the morale of his men soothed. He scanned the datapad he held pinched between his armoured fingers, reading the status report from his second, Lieutenant Alba Cain. Cain was a mean little bitch who knew how to keep her team in check, so he had had no qualms with leaving her in charge aboard the Normandy.

He glanced up from the datapad and looked out of the domed canopy of the shuttle's cockpit, the transparent alloy curving across the entire front of the vessel. Not good for protecting its pilots, but on a stealth vessel that hardly mattered. If anyone was close enough to spot them, decreased protection to the flight crew would be the least of their worries.

He let his eyes roam over the shape of the Normandy's outer hull as the starlight reflected from its surface directly below them. The shuttle had locked to the top of the Normandy using a mass effect tether - difficult to detect when compared to - say - magnetic docking clamps.

"That vessel is a marvel, no wonder the Illusive Man wants it back." He said, thinking aloud. His pilot knew better than to reply, and didn't even acknowledge that she had heard him speak at all. He sat in silence for a long time, smoking his cigar until there was nothing left except a burned out butt. He stubbed it out against his vambrace, the paint burned and blackened from countless years of the same action. He stood up, and climbed down from the cockpit, the pilot visibly relaxing as he left her to her task.

He was a big man, tall and muscular, with the gait of a career soldier. In his late fifties he was quickly reaching his prime, considering the average human lifespan now Prothean technology had boosted human medical science. His hair was greying and his miriad tattoos fading, but he was still the equal of Alliance soldiers half his age. He stretched to flex his idle muscles; having been sat in the cockpit for several hours he needed to work out the tension and return his body to its physical peak. He needed to be at his best for this mission. Shepard was a dangerous adversary, and not one to be taken lightly. When they finally came face to face, Edison would not be found wanting.

He had been so damn close before that bitch quarian had screwed up everything. He cast his mind back to that moment, when the Normandy had vented - violently. Tulchev had just vanished out of the airlock, right before his eyes. He'd been a good man, and had served with Edison for a long time. Not long enough, after today. He would make sure she suffered for Tulchev's death; he owed her for that.

Shepard had been so close, hidden away inside the infirmary one deck below. Then the ship had vented; the main airlock had been jammed open. Quarian bitch.

She had run some sort of hacked VI program that had sealed the infirmary, jammed open all other doors on the ship, and then opened the main and auxiliary airlocks. The decompression had been overwhelming, and he had almost followed Tulchev into the embrace of God. Through the Lord's grace he had remained, as had the rest of his commando unit. Cain had barely kept her control, and only his own dangerous expression had calmed her down. Still, there was a fury simmering behind the woman's eyes, and Edison knew that he would need to let her slip her leash soon or she could become... disruptive.

Looking at the monitors in the crew bay of the shuttle, he could see her heart rate was increasing, her blood was very much up. Looking at the holo-feed from her helmet camera, he could see her pacing the CIC beside Shepard's command terminal, Zou and Foreman keeping well out of her way. She had a strong team, they would keep her in check.

Zou was something of an oddity for a Cerberus operative. He was young, almost too young for Edison's taste, and that probably explained it. He was a skilled unarmed combatant, having trained with an asari huntress practically from birth. He was - by asari tradition - also a biotic. It was rare for asari to take on human apprentices, so Zou's family must have been pretty damn impressive to get one to train their son into the almost super-human killing machine he was.

He had taken to carrying an asari hunting blade as a backup weapon, and preferred to incapacitate his targets with his biotics before finishing them off up close with the blade.

He was almost completely hairless, and had also picked up a nasty habit from his old mistress - after every kill, he took the still wet blade and carved into his own flesh to mark the victory. It was a crude practice, but nothing was normal about that xeno trained freak. Zou was one of Cain's little creatures, and so long as he followed orders and did his job, Edison could care less who he was or where he had come from.

Foreman was something else entirely. Thin and wirey, he was never the less a figure of taut muscle and incredible durability. The little shit had survived more than Edison had ever believed possible, and bore the scars to prove it. He had seen him shot, stabbed, beaten, crushed, and even blown up - but still the bastard could fight almost a well as he could. He had a preference for machine pistols, and carried two into battle, as well as his trusty shotgun. At range, Foreman was at a disadvantage, but up close, only Zou was better.

Edison smiled as he remembered the time they had been infiltrating the Citadel to go after some turian officer called Septimus. Their cover had been blown, and the mission scrubbed. They had scattered, disappearing into the wards. Foreman had tried to get clear from the Zakera wards, and had been challenged by a unit of C-Sec hunters. He had drawn his twin pistols and killed them all before even one of them had fired a shot. That reporter - Al-Jilani - had almost shit a brick covering that one.

Then there was Cain herself. A graduate of the Biotic Acclimation and Temperance Training scheme conducted during the early years of human biotic research. Wired with L2 biotic amplifiers, her abilities were almost prodigal amongst the initial candidates, though she suffered badly for it. The amplifiers altered her personality, making her prone to violent mood swings, which limited her uses as candidate for the Alliance military.

She was eventually removed from the project in secret by the Illusive Man and drafted into Cerberus - right after she killed two of her instructors during a mental breakdown brought on by the conditions of the training regimen. The Illusive Man put a great deal of time and money into Cain, earning the woman's loyalty and stabilising her condition to the point where she could control it, most of the time. Still, Cain was a dangerous and unpredicatble predator, and though Edison trusted her, he trusted her no more than one would trust a starving tiger not to tear off your arm. He had gotten quite good at stearing her toward his own goals, and so he was stuck with her - none of the other cell leaders had even come close.

Yes, his team was ready - he was ready - for whatever Shepard and his rabble of alien scum could throw at them.


	15. Chapter 15

"I need to know." Shepard said, barely restrained urgency in his voice. "I need to know what happened to the ship. I need to know what happened to the crew."

"You were asleep for so long." Tali said, her voice weak and almost dreamlike. "We didn't know what to do. So we left you. Zaeed... he took the lead, he rallied us, gave us purpose. I think he likes you, Shepard."

"Focus, Tali. Focus!" Shepard said, conscious of how frail she must be. He paced the engine room, fuelled by impotent rage. She was so close and yet so far away.

"I'm... sorry Shepard, I'm running a fever - it's getting hard to think clearly." She stammered, forcing the words out through sheer will.

"Stay with me." Shepard urged her, his voice breaking. "Keep talking, fight to stay awake."

"Zaeed... Garrus... Thane... we crossed to their ship, to take parts to repair the Normandy. It was going so well... until we found it." She said, her voice distant. "Until we found... him."

_Three weeks ago..._

The interior of the _Styx _was a honeycomb of compartments, bulkheads between them designed to seal the ship in case of hull breach. Each compartment - though they varied in size and function - had been heavily converted to turn the vessel into a warren of corridors, dead ends and killing fields. It was as if Cerberus itself had been made flesh, albiet in metal; the ship the manifestation of the Illusive Man's very nature. Secretive, confusing, undeniable.

Zaeed Massani was impressed despite himself - he had not seen something so intricately and painstakingly designed to disorient and demoralise a foe in years. He had decided fairly early into their little excursion that he would be content to serve aboard a vessel like this during his career. As an infiltrator on the ship he was satisfied - almost excited - with the challenge it represented. The _Styx _would be a tough foe to beat, but Zaeed was more than up to the challenge.

He flexed his fingers apprehensively on his rifle, the tension of their surroundings almost too much for even him. He was expecting an ambush at any moment, for the walls to receed and reveal a hidden foe, weapons ready to end his existance. It was... liberating. He couldn't stop smiling, no matter how much he tried to hide it from his fellows. The drell had been eyeing him warily, and the rictus grin plastered across his face would do little to reassure the conscionable assassin.

Thane Krios ran alongside him, an M-9 Tempest submachine gun clutched in his reptilian hands, his sniper rifle strapped to his back. Thane's long stormcoat rippled as he moved, his leather-clad form resembling some wraith or spectre in the near-darkness. It leant him an air of menace his reputation eagerly enforced, but the reality of the man rejected. Zaeed had been almost disappointed with Thane when they finally crossed paths, the drell's deeds speaking louder than any of his calm, logical words. A killer with a conscience - Zaeed was almost disgusted at the thought.

Behind him, Zaeed could hear the footsteps of his other companions, Garrus Vakkarian and Tali'Zorah vas Neema. No, it was vas Normandy now - she belonged to Commander Shepard in more ways than one after her trial aboard her crew-ship. Though Shepard had ensured the charges against her were dropped, there was a tangible air of secrecy and deception over the whole ordeal, and the quarian's reputation had likely been tainted in the minds of the more extreme examples of her people. Zaeed had never had the need to remind her of this, but he had filed the information away for future use - if and when Shepard stopped paying for his services.

They were allies for now, but that would not always be the case. Money was money, after all. It just so happened that Cerberus - back when Shepard had been working for them - had paid him a sh*t-tonne of it to help the Commander defeat an alien race that had been harvesting human colonies. He would have done it for a lot less, truth be told; less colonies meant less protection jobs, and less jobs meant less money. It had been in his best interest to stop the Collectors, that Cerberus had paid him a small fortune to do it had made it a no-brainer.

Once the collector base had been destroyed, and the few remaining Collectors scattered to the winds - their leaders dead - Shepard had promised to keep paying him, so he had stayed aboard the Normandy. So now he found himself fighting against his old employers. Wouldn't be the first time, and it definitely wouldn't be the last.

"Where the hell is this goddam place?" Zaeed growled almost to himself, his sense of foreboding reaching fever pitch.

"It should be just up ahead." Tali'Zorah replied, her voice tinny through the communications rig built into the helmet of her environment suit. She cradled her shotgun almost like a favoured child, and her combat drone shadowed her, the light given off by its holographics acting like a torch in the darkness as it easily matched her pace.

"You've been saying that for hours." Garrus replied, a hint of a complaint in his voice. He carried the geth pulse rifle he had recovered from Haestrom one handed, his arms pumping as he sprinted after Zaeed and Thane, the organic lines of the sleek weapon reflecting the light from Tali's drone. "Just admit it; we're lost."

"We are _not lost_; this ship is a hive. It doesn't match it's schematics - the central computer only had its original design blueprints uploaded. Cerberus have retro-fit and modified it so much that it may as well be a completely new vessel." Tali hissed, her aggravation clear.

"Sure." Garrus purred, obviously teasing now Tali had taken his bait. "And I thought you quarians were supposed to be experts on starship construction."

Tali narrowed her eyes, the glow of the silvered orbs dimming behind her face plate. She was about to reply when Thane spoke for her, his usual stoicism fading for a moment as a crooked smile graced his lips.

"You remember she has a shotgun, right Garrus?" He said, his tone as deadpan as it always was.

"Point taken." Garrus laughed, surprise at the drell's joke adding to his amusement. It was good to see Thane mellowing a little, and at least trying to include himself in the easy rapour of the two friends. It clearly wasn't easy for him, his illness sapping at his will to form emotional attachments, especially amongst people who had bonded years before in the most intense situation a relationship could develop - the middle of a galaxy-spanning war.

"Less chatter, or do you _want _to be caught in an ambush like a bunch of goddam amateurs?" Zaeed said, sounding irritated. What little remained of their light-hearted mood was instantly snuffed out by his disapproving words. They continued on in silence, the tension returning almost immediately as they waited for the inevitable contact with the Cerberus defenders.

Edison scanned his orders as they scrolled across the heads up display on the inside of his helmet, the holographic image projected onto the back of his visor by an emitter attached to his communicator. Sporadic reports of weapons fire inside the Styx were alarming in the least, though he was more concerned that Ramada's team had not reported in from aboard the Normandy. Something in his gut told him that they were all dead, as none would allow themselves to be captured alive. He had voiced his reservations to the Illusive Man about the Canadian's arrogance, that his views on the inferiority of aliens was blinding him to the true threat Commander Shepard and his crew represented.

His employer had simply reminded him of Ramada's service record, as well as his rank. The smug son of a bitch had been polite and patient during their conversation, listening to all Edison's complaints in silence before explaining to him that Ramada was his subordinate, and as such it fell to Edison himself to ensure that he was kept in line. It had basically been a big 'fuck you', but it was too late to do anything about it now.

Sometimes Edison wondered if the Illusive Man really understood half of what he claimed to know, or whether his lofty perch at the top of the human food chain had blinded him to the realities of what it was that Cerberus actually did. Edison hated aliens as much as the next human with their head screwed on right, but that did not blind him to the strengths of his enemies. Ramada was so convinced humanity was superior that he never even considered that alien species might actually surpass the skills of humans in certain regards. Edison was not that damn retarded. Humans deserved to rule the galaxy - as they alone had been crafted in God's image - but he had no illusions that the devil had power of its own, and maybe some of that power had been used in the creation of these _pretenders _to humanity's throne.

No, he would not underestimate Shepard and his rabble. It made it all the more satisfying to hunt him down and remind him of all he had so easily cast aside when he threw his lot in with the Citadel council. If Edison had the chance to remind the Illusive Man of his mistake when he chose Shepard for the collector extermination, then that would just be a bonus. Edison knew that he should have been the one to go through the Omega 4 mass relay, that Cerberus had not needed the help of outsiders and aliens to get the job done. Still, there was a sense of satisfaction in using aliens to kill other aliens - it weakened both sides after all - but that only mattered if any of Shepard's crew had of been killed during the mission. That they had not was just one more insult, one more example of the Illusive Man and his arrogance. He continually underestimated Shepard, and Shepard just kept kicking him in the balls for it. Edison would not make that mistake.

Reading over the orders once more, a realisation began to form in his mind. The Styx's cargo was secure, the containment field was showing a ninety-eight percent stability, with the power fluctuations well within acceptable margin. That meant that - with the cargo secure - weapons fire could only be from Shepard and his crew. They must have infiltrated the ship and were likely engaging the security detail.

Ramada had reported that several members of Shepard's crew were not aboard the Normandy, or at least had been contained. The krogan - Grunt - had been sealed in the cargo hold, Subject Zero was not aboard, neither was the geth designated Legion. The asari justicar had left the Normandy some weeks back, her pact with Shepard fulfilled. With confirmed sightings of Garrus Vakkarian, Tali'Zorah vas Neema, Thane Krios, Mordin Solus and Zaeed Massani, that left only Shepard himself, Jacob Taylor and Miranda Lawson - both Cerberus traitors - unaccounted for.

The salarian - Solus - was a skilled physician, so it made sense for him to remain aboard the Normandy to tend the wounded caused by Ramada's ill-fated attack. Taylor was a man of duty, so would likely stay behind to organise the vessel's defences. Lawson was a facilitator, better suited to command than field operations. So that left Shepard, Massani and the aliens to mount the counter attack. Edison certainly hoped so; he really wanted to see just how well he matched up to the legendary Spectre.

"Cain, get the team assembled. We're going hunting." Edison said after opening an encrypted channel to his second in command. It was time to find out just how good Shepard really was.


	16. Chapter 16

"This is it. We're here." Tali'Zorah vas Normandy exclaimed with no small sense of satisfaction. This was their ticket out of here - the primary generator of the Styx, the Kharon class Cerberus frigate they had successfully managed to sneak aboard.

"Keep your goddam voice down." Zaeed chided, lifting his hand to point his fingers to the ceiling in the human gesture for stop. The team reacted instantly, dropping low behind him. Garrus turned one eighty, the barrel of his rifle swinging around to gracefully point back they way they had come.

Zaaed crouched down, his back pressing against the bulkhead, and he crept carefully forward, Thane a mirror image against the opposite wall.

Reaching the cross section at the end of the corridor, both mercenary and assassin craned to look beyond the other, taking in the corridors beyond. When neither spotted any opposition, both nodded, and they rolled out of cover together, reversing their facing and proceeding away from each other, allowing Tali and Garrus to move up behind them.

"If the generator core is indeed beyond that blast door as you say, I bet Jessie that it's under a shit-tonne of armed guard. We'd better look for another way in." Zaeed said over closed comms.

"I guess that means you're up then Thane." Garrus commented, his eyes scanning the darkness back the way they had come. It did not sit well with him that the emergency lighting on the ship was running. The Normandy had not hit the Styx hard enough to damage the power output this deep into the ship, which meant that the lights had to have been powered down deliberately. Which meant that their presence had not gone unnoticed, and that meant that their enemy had to be looking for them. That they had gotten so far into the ship without any real resistance was a matter of deep concern. He knew Zaeed and Thane had noticed it too, and Tali was not stupid.

They were running on borrowed time, and they all knew it.

Darkness, cold and still, though not the ocean of calm it should have been. The air was dry, and filled with a silence so complete it was almost painful, like an intake of breath before a storm of violence – the calm of the sea before a tsunami. There was a weakness to the huddled shapes in the inky black, a silent cry for aid without any hope of an answer. Death was everywhere, as inevitable as the tides, a whirlpool with a current too strong to outlast. The maelstrom was drawing near for all of them; soon it would claim them all.

Light flooded the cell, banishing the darkness into the depths, and more humans entered. Perhaps the maelstrom was upon them after all.

Another Hanar was thrust in amongst them, followed by the battered corpse of the drell, Ignio. There would be none to protect them anymore.

"See?" A human voice called out, gesturing to the dead drell. "See what happens when you resist? If that happens one more time you will all share her fate."

The newcomer – the hanar – moved away from the humans that had goaded it along, its flesh rippling with fear. This one knew how it felt. This one had been here for many tides, and did not expect to see the ocean again. This one was dry, so very dry. Few tides remained for this one; it was drawing near to the maelstrom and had not the strength to fight the current any longer. Soon. Very soon.

Foreman watched as the jailers went about their work, thrusting the last of the hanar into the cell, observing the wretched creature with more than a little satisfaction. Colonel Edison and the Styx's Captain, Volkana Ibn Rashid, had decided that the hanar should be kept away from the rest of the cells, far out of reach of Shepard and his pet drell.

They planned to keep Krios away from the stupid jellyfish, as Ibn Rashid had chided and pressured Edison until the Colonel had given up arguing. The Captain had reasoned that 'the last thing they needed was a drell of his considerable skill running around my ship on some vengeance crusade'. Foreman had seen the look in Edison's eyes as they had parted ways with the Captain, a look that promised Ibn Rashid a new hole to breathe out of if the stupid bastard continued to push him.

The Captain had called it damage limitation. Foreman called it cowardice.

Still, Foreman knew exactly how to sooth his commanders ire, and had crafted a plan of his very own. The Captain wanted to keep Krios away from the Hanar, but Foreman planned to make sure that he most definitely found his way down to the cell block. He wanted the drell at his most lethal when they finally crossed paths, and he knew the only way to get it would be for him to pay a little visit to these vile little aliens.

"There isn't a chance in hell we can get that shit out of here without bringing the entire ship down on our heads." Zaeed hissed, shaking his head in annoyance. "I knew this wasn't going to be a cake walk, but fuck me in the goddam arse this is taking the piss."

Tali did not share the mercenary's eloquence but she did share his assessment of the situation. From their vantage point on one of the service gangways that ran along the rafters of the generator room, the four of them could see down into the cavernous expanse below.

Shield walls created by sparking emitters lined the lower level, turning the open space into a killing field of corridors and dead ends, almost labyrinthine in its complexity. Each one powered by the very core they were protecting, and could only be shut down by a command console nestled into the root-like conduits snaking out of the foot of the vast generator assembly housing the core.

YMIR heavy mechanoids patrolled in pre-programmed routes, designed to overlap so each section was covered by two of the walking tanks at any one time. Getting through would prove almost impossible.

"Well there goes that plan." Tali said, pulling a face she knew no one could see behind the concealing armour-glass of her mask.

"I fail to see a way through that wouldn't require starship grade weaponry to open." Thane concurred.

"So what do we do now, oh fearless leader?" Garrus asked, his voice heavy with mirth.

"If the direct path is closed to you, make a new one – preferably with explosives." Zaeed replied sarcastically, his patience with the turian's wit beginning to wear thin.

"So you mean we fall back and find the spare parts storage?" Tali said, shifting her weight from one foot to the other.

"Exactly. Though first of all we need to find someone who knows where that is." Zaeed replied, turning back the way they had come. "Come on then, lets go."


	17. Chapter 17

Shepard drifted through the smashed window separating the engineering access corridor from the main hanger. Bracing himself against the window frame, he aimed for the control console directly below the window and carefully pushed off, launching himself forward in the zero gravity.

Once on the deck, he engaged the magnetic clamps in the soles of his boots and stood up on the deck. He quickly searched the immediate area, looking for something, anything that could help him get some semblance of what had gone on here.

A fierce gunfight, judging by the bullet holes and bloodstains one of the reserve fuel tanks for the hammerhead had been punctured and had exploded, the damage to the hanger and the hover vehicle was severe. The hammerhead wasn't going anywhere without a refit.

It took him a moment to notice the Cerberus boarding craft impaling the main hanger doors, the lighting in the hanger was so poor, but once he did he hurried over to the stricken vessel. There had to be something on board he could use.

As he reached the access hatch for the ship a sense of paranoia overcame him momentarily, and he scanned the access panel for the hatch with his onmi tool. His time spent around Mordin paid off again the hatch was rigged with an explosive charge should anyone other than Cerberus personnel try to open it.

The question was whether or not he dare risk trying to override it with his Spectre chip. The Illusive Man had to know about his re-instatement as a Spectre, so surely would have accounted for this.

Well, standing here debating it wouldn't get him to Tali any faster, and as good as he was, he doubted he could take an entire Cerberus commando team with only a pistol and his wits. It was time to bank on some of that trademark Shepard luck and bravado.

Activating his omni tool, he began the override.

Tali'zorah vas Normandy drifted in and out of consciousness, her reality blurring with that of her fever dreams. She knew she was in trouble, not only was she bleeding internally but the bullet was still inside her somewhere, and she had caught some form of infection from it. She was weak, and had difficulty staying awake.

She tried to focus on reality, knowing that if she drifted away she may never come back, and she was not ready to die yet. She remembered hiding, hiding away from some barely remembered monster. It was too hard to recall the details.

She did remember talking to Shepard, of him making a promise to find her. He had never broken a promise yet.

Her vision went dark, and she drifted for some time, until her reality returned with a start. Tali became dimly aware of no longer being alone in the pod. A familiar figure clad in a white armoured suit, she wondered for a long time as to his identity.

He. She knew that much, but nothing more. It was too hard to think.

"Tali'zorah vas Neema, hero of the fleet, defeater of the collectors and uniter of the Geth. I am so very proud of you my child." An achingly familiar voice spoke to her.

"Thank you." Tali said, hearing the words but not truly understanding their meaning.

"Hold on, Tali'zorah, and we can be together once again." The voice returned - a note of urgency along with the words this time.

"I cannot. Shepard is coming for me. He will take me away from here and make me whole again." Tali replied, holding up a bloodstained hand for the other to see. "This isn't good."

"Tali, who is the Shepard of whom you speak, there is no one here but us? No one is coming for you, as I am already here." He said in reply, and Tali became dimly aware of him shaking his head.

"No, Shepard is coming. He will save me, just like he did from Fist. Just as... just as he did when I was falling off the edge... in the collector base. Just as he did when we destroyed that satellite relay dish on Aite." Tali said, her brow creased in a frown beneath her mask.

"He will come for me." She repeated, drifting away once more.

Shepard flexed his arm, circling his shoulder to work the damaged muscles, as he often did subconsciously when he was thinking, and looked at what little he had managed to scavenge from the Cerberus ship. Some medi-gel, half a dozen thermal clips for his pistol, a heavy duty power cell, and of course the bomb that had been wired to the access hatch were amongst the things laid out before him on the deck.

He needed to travel light, so grabbed them and left the rest of his little treasure trove stowed safely in one of the ventilation units damaged by the exploded fuel tank. He took only three of the thermal clips just in case he needed to return here later - the medi-gel, and the bomb.

As he lifted the charred and dented side panel back into place on the unit, something made him pause and grab the battery too. That had to be Tali's influence on him he thought, as he secured his stash and tried to plan his next move.

Shepard couldn't do this alone, and he knew it. He needed Grunt, if the krogan was indeed still trapped in the cargo storage room.

Urdnot Grunt paced in the cargo room, his anger in check for now. He could feel the rage bubbling beneath the surface when he got out of this prison there would be hell to pay.

He did not know why he had been sealed in, but he could guess. Whatever had done it clearly didn't want him loose on the Normandy, and that meant intruders. Pirates maybe?

He hoped it was a pirate attack. Pirates usually put up a decent fight.

He paced back and forth like the caged animal he was, gnashing his jaws together in frustration. The door showed signs of repeated impact, with blood staining it in places. Krogan blood. Grunt reached up to his crest and wiped away the latest trickles of his life-fluid. It had almost healed already, but Grunt didn't care his repeated head-butting had not even dented the metal.

Unsure what else to do, Grunt began to pace once more.

A flicker of light caught his attention the door lock, it was showing renewed signs of corrosion. Tilting his head to the side, Grunt frowned, watching the burn marks on the lock spreading as the seconds ticked by.

By the time he had realised what was happening, the door lock had been cut through completely, and the door retracted into its frame. Grunt was ready, and came out charging. He slammed into a human and pitched him against the wall, his armoured bulk hitting a split second later.

"Nice to see you too Grunt." Shepard's voice cut through his blood rage like a shard of ice to his primary heart.

"Battlemaster?" Grunt growled, unsure of what was going on.

"Come on, we've got some asses to kick." Shepard said, and set off back to the lift shaft. 


	18. Chapter 18

The first point Edision realised something was wrong was when Foreman's bio-rhythm suddenly spiked before quickly calming again. Edison knew that sign anywhere; Foreman had been knocked unconscious. Lifting his feet from where they were rested on the edge of the command console, he spun his seat around and planted his feet, practically leaping from the chair and grabbing his helmet and weapons.

Securing the full-face EVA battle helm onto his armour, the Cerberus commander scanned his eyes rapidly over the heads up display projected onto the inside of his faceplate. Zou and Cain's bio-scans were showing increased adrenaline levels he'd seen it so many times that he knew what it meant they were engaging the enemy.

And that meant Shepard.

Without a word to the pilot he hurried to the airlock, prepping his Revenant machine gun on the way. The weapon unfurled from its sleep-state and lit up with a whine. Ramming a fresh thermal clip into the weapon he waited for the airlock to auto-cycle before bracing himself against the bulkhead. The external hatch opened, and then the world went silent.

Before him was a vista of stars, a void so empty it could drive a man mad. Edison never gave much stock to weaklings like that. The galaxy was a nasty place; it would eat you and shit you out if you gave it even the smallest chance. To some, space was too much to handle.

To Edison, space was a blessing. A career soldier, Edison had fought in so many wars that the galaxy should be afraid of him. There were so many enemies of humanity out here for him to test his mettle against. But no prize was so coveted as Commander Shepard.

And now their time had come - time to see who the better soldier was.

Alba Cain stopped pacing the Normandy's combat information centre the second Foreman flew past her and slammed bodily into the console behind her. Her Carnifex was in her hand before the engineer had even bounced off the ceiling of the CIC on his journey down toward the cockpit, and she aimed it one-handed at the raging Krogan standing magnetically locked to the deck plating before her.

She barely had the chance to call on her biotic abilities before an armoured body slammed into her and lifted her feet from the deck, carrying them both toward the curved wall in the zero gravity, though they never reached it.

Channelling her rage through her biotic implants, Cain pushed her attacker with incredible force, propelling him across the CIC to slam into the opposite wall. Her anger had made her blind to Newton's Third Law, however, and her biotic powers propelled her with an equal force into the other wall.

Dazed, the two combatants drifted in the zero-g.

Grunt watched with satisfaction as the Cerberus operative flew away from him down the CIC toward the bridge, his blood following after him in tiny droplets. The human was unconscious, and though Grunt was pleased with his blow, he was also disappointed that the human had put up so little a fight.

That changed when the third human in the room leapt at him from across the central holographic projector, flying at Grunt without hesitation. Grunt smiled, calculating the time it would take for the human to come within his reach, and drew back his claw, clenched into a fist. This would be fun.

Zou floated freely toward the Krogan, his fingers held tightly together to form his hands into daggers, ready to take the Krogan where it would hurt it the most. He smiled as the stupid beast pulled its arm back ready to swing a punch. Zou had been expecting it and he channelled his biotics abilities to push himself forward at the last possible moment with a burst of speed that the krogan simply could not anticipate. He jabbed his hands forward, striking the brute in the nerve cluster just below its eye plates.

The next thing Grunt remembered was his vision exploding with stars, and he felt the impact of the little human on his chest. Grunt smiled as the insignificant little man slammed into him, his massive bulk and magnetic boots anchoring him to the deck. It would take a lot more than that to take him off his feet.

His smiled faded as the human grabbed the sides of his helmet, planted its feet in the centre of his chest and then...

Zou flipped in mid air, planting his feet on the curved walls of the CIC, grinning widely as the Krogan slammed into the wall opposite him. He doubted it had even registered his biotic push, but it certainly felt the impact as it smashed into the titanium bulkhead.

His eyes darted from right to left as the armoured form of Commander Shepard shot through his field of vision and slammed bodily into the wall beside him, and he turned his grin in the direction of his Lieutenant. Cain was dazed, drifting away from the other wall - a mirror image of Shepard on the opposite side of the CIC.

That meant that the krogan was now her problem for a while, and he twisted his neck to the side, popping tendons in preparation for what was to come.

It was his turn with the famous Spectre now.

Shepard shook the lights clear from his eyes, clearing his vision as best he could. His head was throbbing from the impact, and his shoulder wounds were bleeding again, but his concerns evaporated as an armoured boot slammed into his face. He looked around for his attacker, and took another boot to the face for his troubles, but this time he saw it coming.

Even with his vision flaring from the force of the blow, Shepard called on his Cerberus implants and sent a warp bubble flying up at the ceiling. When his sight returned he saw his attacker was now standing on the deck, face to face with him. His biotic attack had missed. Damn that little bastard was fast.

Still, Shepard had taken a yahg in close combat, so one human however fast was no match for his enhanced constitution. The next blow came up from his right a reverse roundhouse kick that Shepard caught in an iron hard grip. He threw the leg upward with all his might, the Cerberus operative flipping in the air.

Before he had even spun 180 degrees Shepard punched him in the spine with the force of a krogan, propelling the man across the CIC to join his colleague, the woman who had only just regained her composure taken completely by surprise as the man cannoned into her, knocking her off her feet again.

Shepard flexed his fingers, clenching his hands into fists once more, and readied himself for the return attack.

Grunt, now mag locked back to the deck, shook his head and wiped blood from his snout, before pounding his fist into his palm in the krogan gesture for combat readiness.

This fight was about to get a lot more bloody. 


	19. Chapter 19

Alba Cain snarled loudly, her rage at the indignity of having Zou thrown at her was more than she could stand. Using a bubble of dark energy she pushed the still recovering huntsman away from her and drifted back down to the deck, her magnetic boot seals securing her to the metal plating.

Channelling her biotic abilities even further she sent a shockwave of crushing force at the krogan warrior, her eyes ablaze with power. Her anger was a potent fuel for her powers, and they became more intense the more she gave in to her rage. The only problem was control, as once the process had begun there was little could be done to stop it.

The krogan bared its teeth as the waves of pain washed over it, though to its credit the reptilian monster stayed securely anchored to the deck. It staggered as she pressed her attack, and it leaned into the onslaught as one might into a gale. Slowly, it began to move toward her, each step clearly agonising, but that did not deter it, instead seeming to drive it to further feats of endurance.

By the time it reached her it had taken enough force from the biotic assault that its armour had turned from a glossy black into polished silver as the shockwave stripped the paint from its battle plate. Wherever its body was bare, the krogan's scaly flesh was actually beginning to peel away from its muscles, thick, sticky blood spraying away behind it like rain drops.

It reached out for her, its massive clawed hands grasping for her throat. Forced to end her assault, Cain instead channelled all of her biotics into a palm strike that would have crushed a human ribcage, but achieved nothing more than to knock the creature back several feet, giving her breathing room enough to draw her pistol.

She had just enough time to raise it to head height and pull the trigger before the brute was upon her.

XXXXXXXX

Zou was in agony, his body twisted and at least three of his ribs were broken. He was amazed despite the pain – no one had managed to land so hard a blow on him in years. Yvenna, his old Asari mistress, would have been appalled at the quality of his form. She would have flayed him for hours for such a basic mistake.

Recovering enough to push himself biotically to the deck, he stooped – the pain doubling him over – and locked his gaze with Commander Shepard. He would not make such an error again.

Reaching into his hip pouch, he retrieved a stimm injector filled with medi-gel and stabbed it hard into his gut, feeling the icy liquid burning beneath his skin. The relief was almost instantaneous, and he gingerly straightened back up to his full height. Testing his flexibility, Zou limbered up, and pulled himself into a fighting stance designed for biotically enhanced zero gravity combat.

From Shepard's awkward gait, Zou could easy tell that the Commander had had no such training.

XXXXXXXX

Commander Shepard waited for the little man to move, anticipating a fast and unrelenting reign of blows. But the Cerberus man never moved, instead goading Shepard into coming for him. Shepard knew that the element of surprise was now lost to him and Grunt, and that their chances of an even fight were becoming slimmer by the moment. This needed to end fast, or they would lose.

The nimble little fighter beckoned Shepard closer, daring him to attack. The first human Spectre did not intend to disappoint. Faster than his bulky frame should have allowed, he rushed forward, hoping to use his heavier weight to his advantage. The little man may be fast, but speed meant nothing in tight quarters, and it was there that Shepard would have the advantage, and all of his opponents training and experience would be useless.

As Shepard came within reach, the Cerberus man twisted aside at the last moment, avoiding his attack entirely and delivering a hard chop to the base of Shepard's ear. Stars exploded in his vision and his hearing was drowned out by white noise. The strength in the blow was incredible, and Shepard lost his footing, drifting into the air and slamming hard into the central command consoles.

Arresting his movement on the safety rail surrounding the holo projector, Shepard turned back to face his opponent in time to parry a wicked jab with his forearm, delivering a gut wrenching knee strike to the little man's stomach.

Capitalising, Shepard swung up with a right hook into the man's temple, following it up with a left uppercut that sent Zou spinning away toward the ceiling.

Without hesitation, the Commander pushed off from the console and shot up after his foe, fists clenched for another attack.

XXXXXXXX

The bullet from the woman's gun tore through Grunt's forehead plate and embedded into his skull, the pain serving only to fuel the krogan's blood lust as he backhanded the weapon aside, the human losing her grip on the pistol, and it sailed across the CIC, no longer a factor in their battle.

Before she could recover, Grunt delivered a devastating punch to her chest, cracking her armour plating and throwing her backwards into the wall behind.

Cain rolled aside at the last second as Grunt's boot slammed into the bulkhead where her face had been but moments before, and she pulled her legs up and under her, pushing off from the wall and using her biotics to propel her with incredible force toward him. But Grunt was a fast learner, and – unlike when Zou had taken him by surprise – he was ready for the manoeuvre. Grabbing a claw full of her hair he twisted aside and increased her momentum with all of his prodigal strength, propelling her face first into Yeoman Chamber's station. Sparks flew and Cain scream as an electrical charge flowed through her body, before she was catapulted away with a deafening bang.

Only her biotics saved her, her rage fuelling them like never before, and a dark energy barrier surrounded her as she hit the edge of the holo-projector, arresting her momentum through sheer force of will.

Her hair singed and floating freely in the zero-g, Cain cried out in anger, her clenched fists glowing with dark blue light

"Whore-son bastard, I'll tear off your quad and feed them to a hanar!" She hissed; her face a mask of pure hatred.

Grunt merely laughed at the threat.

"You and what army, bitch?" He smirked, rolling his shoulders to ease the tension in his muscles. Not waiting for an answer, he strode toward her, his smirk evolving into a full, menacing grin.


	20. Chapter 20

Edison drifted along the hull of the Normandy, carefully picking his way toward the still-open airlock at the front of the ship. Though he ached to be inside the vessel – to be engaging Shepard in combat – he did not rush his movements, knowing that to do so could prove fatal should his momentum carry him away from the hull. Forty years travelling the stars taught a man how to be patient.

As he reached the airlock the image of Tulchev's death returned unbidden to his mind. Forty years as a soldier taught a man that loosing people under your command never got easier. The quarian bitch would pay for his death.

Carefully, Edison peered around the frame of the airlock hatch, and into the Normandy SR2. There was no sound, so he could not hear where any potential enemies could be. Instead he had to rely on his sight to tell him where his foes were lurking. He hated this part – hating boarding actions in their entirety – but this was the worst.

He would have to go in unarmed, for firing a rifle in a vacuum was never a good idea – unless you wanted the recoil to push you back out into space. He'd seen a few amateurs learn that rule the hard way, and wouldn't ever be so idiotic. That most of his senses were useless to him was another factor that overly worried him – Shepard could be lying in wait for him, just waiting for him to stick his head through the hatch before blowing it off.

That said, staying out here wouldn't achieve his goals, so there was nothing to it. He would simply have to do it and trust in God to keep him safe. Bringing the back of his right hand up to his helmet, he pressed the crucifix painted there against the mouth guard of his battle helm and kissed the inside of the helmet. It had always brought him God's grace in the past – he just hoped that grace would last.

XXXXXXX

Grunt barely felt the icy cold in the CIC, but Shepard felt it clear as day. It was sapping his energy, as was the Cerberus assassin he had been battling for the last ten minutes without pause. His face was a mask of blood and bruises, and the little man circling him was no different.

The krogan, on the other hand, seemed to have more energy now than he had entered the fight with, and his endurance had proved more than a match for Cain's violent temperament and unparalleled biotic ability.

It didn't matter what she threw at it, Cain knew she wouldn't win this fight. The fact served only to enrage her more, and she turned on Shepard instead. Lifting him off his feet in a dark energy field, she slammed him into the ceiling of the CIC, before smashing him back down into the floor. Bones snapped with the impact, and she left him a sprawled mess on the floor.

XXXXXXX

Edison swung himself down and into the Normandy, his Revenant in his hands before his feet even touched deck. Before him stood the CIC of the ship, its image distorted by a purple barrier field which had come up shortly after hull breach, trapping the remaining atmosphere inside the vessel.

He passed through it, heavy rifle raised to his shoulder. Scanning left and right, up and down, he spotted Foreman's unconscious form wedged up against the ceiling. That position did not look comfortable.

He saw Shepard crumpled in a heap on the deck, his arm clearly broken. The krogan was battling its way to his stricken form, protecting its master like some overgrown pup. This had gone on long enough, and Edison wasn't about to lose it all when the prize was so close that he could touch it.

"Stand down krogan, or I kill your master!" Edison cried out, his voice heavy and commanding. Grunt, who had Zou in an iron hard grip, punched the assassin hard in the face and then let him go.

"Put down the gun and say that again." Grunt said, stepping menacingly toward Edison.

"I said stand down." He repeated, gesturing toward Shepard with his Revenant.

Reluctantly, the krogan obeyed.

XXXXXXX

Shepard awoke to pain for the second time that day, only this time it was not shrapnel wounds that brought him back to consciousness. There was a silver haired man standing over him, clad in the white and black plate of a Cerberus commando. The man's face was hard set and scarred, and a Cuban cigar was clenched between pearlescent teeth. He was cradling a Revenant machine gun like it was his first born, and despite the fog that lingered over his vision, Shepard recognised a career soldier.

This was very, very bad.

"It's about time you woke up." The man hissed – his voice heavy with an Earth accent. Texan, if Shepard was not mistaken.

"Now, it seems we are in a bit of a stalemate here Commander. You have what I want, and I have your crew." He said, gesturing around the empty CIC. Shepard took this as a cue to look around, and spotted Grunt being detained by both the woman and the little man. The krogan looked disgusted at the situation.

"You see Commander Shepard, I am your shadow. If the Lazarus Project had failed to produce results, myself and my team would have been going through the Omega 4 mass relay, not you. That was our right, and you had the audacity to take it away. Well now-" He said at length, taking one last pull on his cigar before tossing it to the deck and crushing it under foot.

"-now we find out who the better man is."


	21. Chapter 21

The Cerberus commando stood over Shepard, his Revenant now in the hands of the woman, who he had begun to realise was the man's second in command. As the commander glanced around, his eyes met Grunt's, the krogan regarding the room with a predatory gaze. He, at least, was ready – only holding his blood lust in check due to Shepard's physical state.

"Get up." The commando said, kicking Shepard in his already broken arm, eliciting screams of pain from the Spectre.

"I said get up!" He repeated, stamping on Shepards fingers, who felt at least two snap under the impact. Dragging Shepard to his feet he punched him in the stomach, doubling him up even through his armour. The biotic may have been prodigal, but this man was the truly dangerous one. Ruthless and unforgiving, Shepard could see it in his eyes. He knew that look – that certain shine to the eyes that promised a whole new circle of hell, not just for you but for everyone you ever knew.

He knew that look, because he saw it every time he looked in the mirror.

XXXXXXX

Tali'Zorah nar Rayya vas Neema was dreaming again. Not of happy thoughts and pleasant things, but a lucid dream that seemed so real that she could not fathom how to tell the difference between the dream and her waking thoughts. She remembered being in a habitat pod, a small expanse of space of her very own on the Neema, her crew ship. There was another there, another quarian. She knew him, but could not remember his name, nor could she remember his face.

She blinked the last remnants of the dream from her eyes, fully awake now. Yes, this... this must be reality. She remembered this place, her home. After she had returned from her pilgrimage and given her gift to the Admiralty Board she had been given this place – this home – in return.

She remembered the stern voice of Admiral Han'Gerrel vas Neema as he had given his acceptance speech during her official joining ceremony, and the softer, more affectionate tone he had used once the ceremony was over. He had smiled at her, resting a hand on her shoulder and telling her how proud of her he and his life-mate were – of her and her many achievements.

"Permission to come aboard, Admiral?" Tali mumbled as she sat up in her bed, remembering aloud the first, nervous words she had said to him after the ceremony had been completed.

"Tali'Zorah, you return to me." A familiar voice drifted across the room, both distant and clear at the same time. She felt... drugged, and she looked down at her hands out of instinct, checking her enviro-suit was still there.

She rubbed thoughtfully at the palm of her hand, feeling the rough surface of the hard wearing material through her glove.

"I... did not realise I had left?" She said in reply, looking up at the figure sitting beside the bed. He – and she could tell his gender by the form of his own enviro-suit – cocked his head to one side, automatically adopting body language designed to show an expression that could not be seen on his face.

"You were gone from us for so long, and we missed you so much." He said, reaching out a three-fingered hand and resting it on her knee.

The sensation brought a flicker of a memory to her sleep-addled mind, and the hand suddenly had five digits for but a moment, before the familiar white of the enviro-suit returned.

"I... do not understand." Tali said, her brow furrowing into a frown beneath her mask. "There is something... no, someone missing."

"What do you mean child? There is no one here but the three of us." He replied, patting her knee gently.

"Wait... three?" Tali replied, genuinely confused.

"Yes, your mother is waiting outside. She is so happy you have come home." He said, gesturing to the door. No, that could not be; her mother was...

"Father..?" Tali said, recognition finally dawning upon her.

"What is it, little spark?" Rael'Zorah vas Alerei asked, leaning in closer.

Little spark. He had not called her that in such a very long time; before she had left the Flotilla to journey out into the galaxy on her pilgrimage.

Fly home soon, little spark.

Before...

Realisation dawned upon her, and with it came the pain. Tali'Zorah nar Rayya vas Normandy cried out in agony – both physical and emotional – reaching a hand out to her father, pleading to him not to leave. A hand that was soaked in her own blood.

As the pain returned, her father faded away, and she was back in the escape pond, all alone once again.

XXXXXXX

It took a long time for Shepard to stand up. He was almost at his end; his last reserves of strength were fading quickly. Soon exhaustion would overtake him; the adrenaline in his system could no longer fight the pain of his many injuries. A broken arm, three broken fingers, shrapnel wounds to his chest, arm and shoulder, several cracked ribs – and these were just the ones he was certain of. His scalp was cut, blood running slowly down his forehead and his helmet had long since been discarded, torn off by the biotic assault of the woman, Cain

He knew her name now, having heard the soldier speak it aloud. He knew it could not be her real name due to her ties with Cerberus, as he doubted Miranda had been born a Lawson. He had always meant to ask her, but had never had the opportunity. Judging by his captors, he doubted he ever would.

"It is a shame, Commander Shepard." A voice called out to him, bringing him back to the present. The commando was speaking.

"I really did want to see what you were made of – to test myself against you, man to man. But the galaxy is a big place, and another like you will eventually come along – all I need to do is wait."

Shepard looked up, following the voice. The man was pacing before him like his old drill instructor back on the Einstein. That memory was old and no longer his. That memory belonged to a man that no longer existed. That life was dead, and unless he could think of a way out then this one was soon to follow.

Stalling for time, he opened his mouth to speak, his voice hoarse, and the words barely passed his cracked lips.

"What did you say?" The commando asked, leaning closer.

"I said; can I at least know the name of the man who is about to kill me." Shepard replied, louder this time.

Pointing Cain's pistol into Shepard's face, the commando smiled, almost imperceptibly, and shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

"Well, you're going to die anyway, what harm could it do?" The commando said, lowering the weapon, and Shepard narrowed his eyes in shock and surprise. It wasn't the words the man spoke that so rattled the Commander, but the words that were not.

The look in the man's eyes spoke more to Shepard than he had expected. This man wanted Shepard to know his name. He wanted Shepard to be able to find him, to hunt him down. But that meant...

"Edison. Adrian Thomas Edison." The man said, and raised the pistol to Shepard's forehead, his finger slowly squeezing the trigger.


	22. Chapter 22

Three weeks previously...

"We're here." Tali said, checking the datapad she had taken from the security officer they had interrogated not long after leaving the engine room. She shuddered at the memory of Zaeed and Garrus going to work on the captured human. The mercenary had seemed to enjoy it, and worryingly Garrus hadn't tried to stop him. The old human was a bad influence on the turian, and Tali made a mental note to raise the subject to Shepard once they were finished here.

Shepard. The thought of the commander brought back the memory of his pale body laid on the bed in the Normandy's medi-bay, stripped to the waist and covered in blood. After a moments effort she pushed her worries aside – she could not jeopardise the mission by getting distracted.

"You worry too much." Garrus purred in her ear, keeping his voice low so Thane and Zaeed did not hear, the two men working together to sweep the storage room, ensuring no Cerberus troops were lying in wait. Tali jumped at the sound, having not heard the turian come up beside her.

"Shepard has been through a lot – taken much worse than just shrapnel. That said, he's been dead, so that's pretty much a given." He continued, his mandibles clicking in amusement.

"You know Garrus, you really are a bosh'tet." Tali hissed, half serious. Behind her helmet her cheeks were flushed, her face burning with embarrassment.

"All clear." Zaeed's voice called out from within the storage room, interrupting their conversation.

"I do my best." The turian confessed, smiling at Tali one last time before following after the human and the drell.

XXXXXXX

There was a small quartermasters office at the back of the storage room, and it didn't take the quarian long to break the security on the access terminal set up inside it. It looked like it was only used for requisitions and cataloguing of parts, however it did have access to the Styx's intranet. Zaeed watched as the young woman worked, trusting the drell and turian to keep the room secured. Moving in closer, he leant on the back of the quarian's chair, leaning over her shoulder to regard the terminal.

As de facto leader of their little commando unit, he needed to know every variable to the mission. Not knowing things tended to come back and bite you in the arse. Knowledge is one of the key factors in self-preservation – ensuring every aspect of the mission was his business was how he had walked away from a contract to scuttle a turian frigate - the Verrikan. It was a shame the rest of his team hadn't. Their loss.

"Damn it!" The quarian hissed, and Zaeed glanced sidelong at her, raising an eyebrow in expectation of more bad news. She ignored his look and continued typing on the command keyboard, it's blue glow lending an eerie quality to her face mask.

"Well don't make us wait all goddam day." He said by way of reply when no explanation was forthcoming, stepping back from the console and folding his arms across his chest.

"The parts we need aren't here – they were moved before we came on board. I guess the damage to the Normandy's engines isn't as bad as I thought; they have only moved the Felex-21 capacitors out of here. They must have hit us with a tight focus ion beam to overload the plasma exchange." Tali said, her tone of voice suggesting that this was a bad thing. Zaeed just looked at her, his expression one that encouraged a simpler explanation.

"Look, it's relatively simple – the capacitors are a safety precaution designed to prevent an overload in the mass effect core of a starship. An overload blows the capacitor, rather than the exchange – preventing an uncontrolled chain reaction in the mass effect core and stopping the ship from exploding. The downside is that without the capacitors the core cannot integrate with the engines, which means the ship is immobilised. I get those capacitors back to the Normandy and we can limp out of here." Tali said at length.

"Then why don't we keep a goddamn stock of them ourselves?" Zaeed asked, unimpressed.

"We do. It was the first thing the Cerberus commando team destroyed when they boarded the ship." The quarian replied, standing up from the console and fiddling with her omni-tool.

"So where are they now?" He asked, readying his rifle and checking the thermal clip.

"Not far from here. I've downloaded their location to my onmi-tool, though there is nothing here to say what that part of the ship is used for. Looks like... habitation stations, maybe a barracks? Could be anything, so I would suggest caution."

"Bloody wonderful." Zaeed growled, shaking his head in disbelief. He was getting too old for this; nothing was ever easy anymore.

XXXXXXX

Mordin Solus closed his eyes, a slight smile twisting the corners of his mouth. Working with Shepard had allowed the professor to take stock, and the realisation that he had enjoyed their war on the collectors had set his troubled soul free. This was his chance, his moment in the spotlight of the ages.

His retirement from the Special Tasks Group had been a mistake, though not entirely his own choice. Since Maelon had died he had been thinking about his old subordinate, and how vocal he had been to what they had done on Tuchanka. Mordin knew that the actions of himself, Captain Kirahee, and their team had been necessary, and though he was good at hiding it, they had alarmed him even more so than Maelon. His conscience weighed heavy on his shoulders, long after the fact.

It had taken Maelon's death – by Mordin's own hand – to make him truly realise this. There had been... something in his heart that had never gone away after the mission, and the ugly affair that covering it up had been.

Salarians tended to deal with loss and grief more quickly than other species due to their shorter life span, but Mordin had lived longer than any Salarian ever should, and he found it an ill experience to comprehend. He was charting an unknown path, there was nothing here for him to weigh himself against. He had no right to still live, and he would ensure that in his final years he would achieve something to be remembered by.

As he drifted through the silent vacuum toward the hull of the Styx, Mordin's smile became a full, toothy grin. He would not die as Professor Mordin Solus, developer of the modified genophage. Though he had helped Shepard defeat the collectors and their human larvae, the Reapers were still out there. Death would be his legacy, but it would not be the krogan he would be remembered for killing.


	23. Chapter 23

Garrus Vakarian hissed out a curse as he dropped back into cover, his sniper rifle laying in pieces on the floor beside him, shards of the weapon embedded in his armour, his bodysuit, his face and his neck. The wounds seemed superficial, but they were bleeding heavily, and his vision swam from the shock of the explosion.

One of those Cerberus operatives was a damn good shot, and the exploding weapon had been like a flashbang going off in his face. He tucked his body into as small a space as he could whilst he waited for his senses to recover, hoping he wouldn't take a round to the head while he was so helplessly incapacitated. He had to trust to his team mates to keep him covered, and pray that it was enough.

He heard the staccato of gunfire all around him, muffled though it was behind the ringing in his ears. The familiar hiss-bang of Tali's plasma shotgun suddenly increased in volume, and he felt her presence beside him. He felt the young quarian's hands on his face and chest as she checked him over for any sign of serious injury. The desperate grasping ceased suddenly, and the sound of her shotgun resumed, though this time he could feel the heat from its discharge washing over him like a wave. Obviously his injuries were not too serious. That was good – he no longer felt the pain of the wounds, and realised that he must be in shock. Either that or he was bleeding out and way past any kind of help. Not a comforting thought.

He became aware of her speaking, shouting something over the din of the fire fight, though he could not make out all the words.

"...faster...-tikka vas Pa..." She said, ducking back down into cover beside him.

The ringing in his ears eased a little, and he worked his mouth open and shut like a fish, hoping to clear his head a little more. It did work, but it was slow going, and by the time he'd regained enough of his hearing to make sense of what was going on around him, Tali was shouting again.

"Go for the optics, Chiktikka! Go for the optics!" He heard her say, and as his vision cleared he looked down at his hands, the three digits on each shaking from the shell shock of the explosion. Clenching his claws into fists a few times to regain a measure of control, he reached over his shoulder and grasped the pistol grip of his geth pulse rifle, pulling the weapon free of the magnetic lock on his armour. The weapon wined as the mass effect core activated and the rifle unfurled, and Garrus twisted the fire selector on the side of the weapon, changing the density of the mass effect field to the inferno setting. This meant that when each round left the barrel of the assault rifle it would ignite, bonding with any armour it impacted and melting through it. What it did to unprotected tissue didn't bare thinking about.

Looking up at the rest of his team, he shouted out to them all.

"Fall back down the corridor, around that corner. I'll cover you." He yelled, and without giving the others even a chance to argue he leapt up out of cover and began spraying fire at the Cerberus security team. One of the men went down screaming as the inferno rounds lit him on fire, another of the enemy dragging the wounded soldier into cover before beating at the flames. Unfortunately for her, she focussed her attention on her colleague and not on keeping her own body in cover, and Garrus did not waste the opportunity, hammering a high impact round through the side of her helmet. She dropped like a marionette with its strings cut, blood and grey matter misting the air behind her.

XXXXXX

Zaeed Massani rolled out of cover as he heard Garrus sound the retreat, and he sighted down the length of his rifle, firing single shots at the enemy squad in support of the suicidal turian. He waited until Thane and Tali'Zorah had passed him and disappeared from his field of vision before stalking forward, firing carefully as he moved, not wasting a single shot. When he drew level with Garrus he fell back into cover opposite him and waved a hand to get the turian's attention.

Garrus nodded in understanding at the inferno grenade held in that waving hand, and blind fired a burst from his rifle to force the enemy back into cover. Zaaed depressed the activation switch on the explosive and hurled it down the corridor toward the enemy.

Hearing the dull thud of the detonation, followed by a hungry whoosh as the incendiary gas ignited by a spark within the casing of the grenade, the two men turned and sprinted as fast as they could down the corridor, ducking around the corner and following after Tali and Thane, the screams of the Cerberus troops echoing after them.

"Nice work Messani." Garrus said; his scarred face showing nothing if not for the look of grudging respect in his eyes. "I am starting to see why Shepard kept you on."

"Well it certainly wasn't for his shining personality." Tali replied, her glowing eyes naught but slits behind the mask of her helmet. Her scolding tone told Garrus that she did not approve of his new found admiration for a man she considered nothing but a butcher with bank account.

Zaeed paid her comments no mind; her opinion really didn't matter to him, and he certainly wouldn't lose any sleep over her disapproval. Clearly her appreciation of him saving her life on the Normandy had faded along with the memory.

She was just a silly little girl playing grown up, naive to the true nature of the galaxy. She wasn't cut out for this kind of work, despite her proficiency with firearms. She didn't have what it took to be like him, or Shepard, or even Vakarian for that matter. They were warriors, and she was just a child with daddy issues.

She could never be like them, and that was why she'd gotten most of her team wiped out on Haestrom – and Freedom's Progress for that matter. He'd spoken to Taylor about that last one, having joined Shepard's unit shortly thereafter. The marine had told him enough to know that she had gotten them killed; even if he had sugar coated it to preserve her feelings. That boy was just as bad as she was.

What Shepard saw in the quarian was beyond Zaeed, unless it was her body – though what she looked like under that suit was a mystery, so that was a gamble he didn't like the odds on. Still, he hoped it wasn't those goddamn chicken feet – why Shepard had turned away that archaeologist – T'soni – he would never know. At least Asari looked mostly human.

As they ran onwards, ever closer to their destination, they were trailed by sporadic gunfire from the survivors of that last security team, though the threat was minimal now. Thane and Garrus fell back as a pair, one firing whilst the other withdrew, stopping to cover each other every half dozen metres or so. That left Zaeed and the quarian free to ensure their forward path was clear, Tali'Zorah consulting her omni tool intermittently to check which direction to go next.

After rounding a corner and having to leap over a gap in the deck plating where an explosion had torn a hole through to the deck below, the corridor came to an end, the door before them wedged half open and sparking in the gloom. Zaeed hit its edge shoulder first, slamming into the titanium door and peering carefully through the gap.

The room beyond was wider than the corridor on both sides, a matching blast door set into the opposite wall. A security station on the left revealed the room's sole occupant, a distracted looking man tapping away on a terminal set into the desk he was sitting at, paying too much attention to the screen to notice the sound of Zaeed's armour impacting with the door.

A large viewport loomed on the right, the distant shape of the Normandy drifting in the void beyond. In front of the viewport was a heavy iron table with a pair of long pews either side of it.

Securing his rifle back over his shoulder, Zaeed drew his carnifex pistol and swept into the room, squeezing through the gap in the door.

The stunned security guard looked up from his seat behind the desk and barely had chance to realise his situation before Zaeed put a bullet through his forehead. Tali – sweeping in behind him – let out a gasp of surprise at the mercenary's ruthlessness, and crossed over to the corpse. She regarded the body, appalled that he had been murdered in cold blood. Zaeed shook his head at her in distain, before grabbing the woman by the arm and gesturing toward the door on the opposite side of the room.

"Get to work opening that door, or we'll all share the same fate." He said, without any real malice in his voice.

Tali simply nodded, and set off toward the access panel glowing red in the centre of the portal.

XXXXXX

It wasn't long before Thane and Garrus joined them at the security checkpoint, and the two quickly went to work overturning the table and pews by the viewport, stacking the pews atop one another to provide better cover.

"We may have a problem." Tali said, consulting her omni tool as she paced over to the security station. "The sensors on the door are reading a vacuum on the other side, and it's locked down to prevent any further decompression."

"So we just go another way." Zaeed said, approaching the woman and the map she had projected above her omni-tool, to see what the problem was.

"No, we don't." Tali replied, tracing suitable routes with her finger. "See, the only other way around is back the way we came, through that fire team."

"So not an option, then." Thane said from behind the overturned table – it was a statement, not a question.

"Can't you hack the door and override the lockdown? We all have full, EVA capable armour – we could do it." Garrus asked, joining the drell behind the makeshift barricade.

"I can try, but it could take a while – this ship is ancient, and nothing much seems to work properly." Tali said, shrugging her shoulders.

"Then get to it." Zaeed said, aiming his rifle at the gap in the doorway, waiting for the Cerberus fire team to come through.


	24. Chapter 24

The first Cerberus trooper through the door took three rounds to the face, Thane's long rifle stripping his kinetic barrier and the combined assault rifle shots from Garrus and Zaeed ripping his head apart above the jaw line. He fell straight forward, landing with a loud smack, flat on what remained of his face.

The trooper behind him stumbled over his corpse, and was shredded by assault rifle fire, collapsing on top of his dead colleague.

After that they seemed to wise up, and no more soldiers came through the door. Instead a flash bang and a pair of fragmentation grenades bounced into the room, the three defenders ducking down behind cover as the explosions turned the corpses into paste.

Tali, her back to the engagement, ignored the explosions as best she could, cringing at the sudden noise but continuing her work on the sealed door, her omni tool glowing red again to show her latest attempt had also failed.

There were two troopers in the room with them before they had recovered, and Zaeed took several shots to his kinetic barriers as he swept up out of cover and tossed an inferno grenade through the doorway, the commotion that followed the explosion telling him he'd manage to catch at least a pair of the Cerberus troopers in the flames.

Dropping back into cover, he grimaced in pain and realised one of the bullets had penetrated his kinetic barrier and hit him in the shoulder. Blood ran from the wound, quickly soaking his bodysuit and staining his armour crimson.

He glanced over toward Garrus and Thane, and was shocked and frustrated to see that the drell had disappeared.

XXXXXX

The two Cerberus troopers inside the security room poured fire into the barricade where Zaeed was crouched, the flames from the inferno grenade trapping them in the room. They knew they were outgunned, so made up for it with sheer ferocity, one pinning the mercenary veteran in his cover whilst the other tried to flank around to the side, firing at Garrus as he did.

As he passed into the dim light cast by the stars beyond the viewport, a pair of black-clad hands appeared at his back, one arm snaking around his neck whilst the other grabbed his trigger hand and pulled his aim away from the turian, the weapon stitching the viewport with bullet holes. The portal however was designed to take glancing shots from starship weapons, and the small calibre rounds barely even made a scratch in its plasteel composite surface.

The man let out a gurgled cry of surprise and alarm before Thane tightened his grip and twisted his arm, snapping the man's neck with barely an effort at all.

The second Cerberus trooper turned at the sound and fired a burst of fire in Thane's direction, but the drell was already gone. Seizing the opportunity, Zaeed and Garrus pumped a volley of fire into the man, and he was dead before he realised his mistake.

"Get a move on, quarian!" Zaeed shouted, popping the thermal clip from his rifle, the core glowing white hot as it arced through the air.

"I'm going as fast as I can, you bosh'tet!" Tali replied, irritation clear in her voice, and she let out a cry of alarm as a burst of fire impacted the blast door beside her head. Zaeed and Garrus rolled up out of cover to return fire only to see Thane beside the damaged door, jabbing his fingers into the exposed throat of the Cerberus trooper who had fired the shot before bending the man's arms so that his own gun was pointing up and under his chin. The man had barely the time to cry out before his brain matter left his head by the exit hole in the top of his helmet. As the man crumpled, the drell stole a look out into the corridor beyond the door.

"I would recommend haste, Miss Zorah – they are bringing pyro troopers and riot shields our way." Thane said, dropping back from the doorway and into cover.

"Oh, wonderful." Garrus groaned, rolling his eyes as his shoulders sagged. "They really want us dead."

"Just hold them off for a few more minutes, I've almost got this." Tali said, tapping her omni tool and tossing the emitter disk of her combat drone into the air.

Chiktikka vas Paus flickered a few times as it came to life, hovering in mid air for a moment before it's sensors registered enemy combatants and it shot off through the doorway.

"Helmets on." Zaeed ordered, reaching up to the gorget of his armour and depressing the activation rune in his collar. The segmented helmet snapped out and enveloped his head, the transparent mask sliding down over his face last of all. A quick glance around showed the rest of his team had done the same, Garrus' head crest now hidden beneath the teardrop shape of his battle helm, whereas Thane glowed with a blue light as a personal void shield activated over his scaled flesh. EVA armour wasn't an option for the dying drell, his Kepral's Syndrome requiring his chest to be uncovered at all time, lest additional moisture build up in his lungs.

Once the shield had activated, Thane shouldered his sniper rifle and drew an M5 Phalanx pistol from the holster on his hip, and standing stock straight, he aimed the weapon one handed at the gap in the damaged door, his other hand planted squarely in the small of his back, bracing his posture.

"I'll take the pyro." He said; his voice cracked and full of phlegm – the only outward sign of his illness. "Once I hit him I'll need you both to keep him pinned in the doorway – or it will get very hot in here."

Zaeed said nothing, but re-settled the stock of his assault rifle back into the crook of his shoulder, bracing the weapon and readying himself for the hell to come.

XXXXXX

The Cerberus response team readied their weapons, their commanding officer looking over each one in turn to ensure his men were ready for this fight – it was going to be brutal, the close confines of the corridor and the narrow opening in the blast doors turning the entrance into a killing field. So far their enemies had eluded capture, and had survived each wave of troopers that had attempted to take them. Captain Ibn Rashid wanted them alive, but he wasn't down here right now, and he wasn't putting his own life on the line to capture them.

To hell with that shit – he'd take them however he could, if they died, then Ibn Rashid would just have to get over it.

"Okay, I want riot shields in first, once through the door spread out, keeping your shields between them and us. First pair through need to stay in front of the entrance to keep those following in behind covered. We cannot let them take the pyro before he gets chance to burn them." He said, his voice stern, making it perfectly clear to his men that he would brook no failure.

"Remember – keep your armour sealed and your helmets locked – the air is thin in this section and that flamer is going to eat up what's left of the oxygen real quick. Don't fuck this up and there are beers in it for all of you once we next get planet side."

The response team nodded their understanding, smiles breaking out on faces, one slapping the shoulder armour of the man beside him, anticipating the celebration. There was no way they could lose.

XXXXXX

The silence of space was unparalleled in its capacity to humble even the greatest living being, and Mordin Solus enjoyed it immensely. No noise but the sound of his own breathing, it provided a perfect escape from distraction and allowed him to truly think. Some of his greatest work had been inspired by ideas that had come to him whilst he drifted in vacuum, and he remembered the ire it had inspired in that arrogant cloaca, Captain Kirahee.

This time, however, he needed his mind focused on the task at hand.

He drifted over the hull of the ship, dragging himself carefully from one segmented armour plate to the next, looking for that perfect spot. There had to be a sensor array around here somewhere..

XXXXXX

As the first of the Cerberus response team entered the room, Garrus knew that this would not end well. Two men with pistols and riot shields entered, the orange glow of the energy field casting the room in an eerie light.

The riot troopers hurried through the door and stopped directly in front of the opening, their shields protecting their fellows as the filtered in, each taking up a position directly beside the man before them, forming a semi circle protecting the doorway.

The pyro trooper entered behind them, followed by a man in the uniform of a Cerberus officer, and he motioned them forward, his words clearly carrying over a private communications link to his subordinates, all of whom had their backs to him.

Thane, seeing the pyro taking cover behind the riot shields, cursed as he saw that there were no gaps in the shield wall – so much for taking the pyro out first.

XXXXXX

The Cerberus captain smiled to himself as he surveyed the room, knowing his team had the upper hand. There was no way that Shepard's infiltration unit could escape. They were trapped, and they knew it.

"You have no way out – surrender now and we will let you live. Resist and you will die." He said matter-of-factly.

"We'll take our chances." Zaeed said from behind their makeshift barricade, and an inferno grenade arced through the air toward the Cerberus troopers. The two in the centre of the line raised their shields above their heads to deflect the incoming missile, and it was then that Thane struck.

Leaping up out of cover, the drell hammered two rounds from his hand cannon into them, knocking out their kinetic barriers and pitching them backwards. They both hit the floor about the same time the inferno grenade did, and they screamed in agony as they were engulfed in the conflagration, the troopers either side of them too were caught in the explosion, their armour igniting as their own kinetic barriers failed.

With the centre of the Cerberus defensive line in disarray, Garrus opened fire on the pyro and the officer before the other troopers could react to cover the breach in their shield wall.

The officer spun aside and dropped to the ground, a cry of pain on his lips. The pyro, however, weathered the storm of bullets and charged through the flames toward them. He was a giant of a man, and the fire from Garrus' assault rifle tore through him, blood spraying behind him like a contrail, but he just kept coming.

He was almost on top of Garrus' position, the firestorm flamethrower clasped in his massive hands turning in the turian's direction. It was moving in slow motion, every detail of the lethal device vivid in Garrus' mind. He hadn't expected to go out like this.

"I've got it!" Tali's voice cried out from behind him, just as the pyro triggered the weapon, a jet of flame streaking out to envelop him, and then everything went to shit.


	25. Chapter 25

With Tali's cry of success, the lock disengaged on the sealed blast door, and the young woman grasped at a safety bar running down the side of the portal as it opened with a deafening roar.

The flames reaching out toward Garrus were quickly extinguished as the room vented its atmosphere into space, claxons screaming out a warning as the ship detected a hull breach. Zaeed was dragged backwards by the explosive decompression, managing to lock his fingers through the holes in the metal decking below him, the heavy iron table he had been cowering behind sliding toward slowly toward his prone form.

Thane reacted faster than most, and leaped straight up into the air, the lighter pews passing harmlessly beneath him as he locked his arms around a nest of piping up in the ceiling.

Garrus hurled himself aside as the pews tumbled through the air, slamming into the wall beside the open blast door and grasping the railing opposite Tali. He looked out into space, seeing the pews tumbling away through the void.

The Cerberus troopers were nowhere near as lucky, the pyro first to disappear out of open hatch – he never had a chance to react before the explosive decompression pulled him off his feet. Several men with riot shields were also sucked out, spinning away into the vacuum beyond.

The officer rolled along the deck, his face a mask of disbelief and rage, and he clawed desperately at the deck, failing to find a hand hold good enough to arrest his momentum. He slammed into the iron table with force enough to lift the thing up off the deck, and it spun away, missing Zaeed by a hairs breadth.

The officer was pulled down and underneath it as it tumbled away, the heavy metal desk smashing into the top of the hatch and coming so close to Garrus and Tali that they shared a wide eyed look of fear. The Cerberus man wasn't going down without a fight, and he grasped hold of Zaeed's leg, his fingers locking around the mercenary's knee pad.

Zaeed let out a cry of outrage, and tightened his grip on the deck plating, not daring to let go. The officer began to pull himself up Zaeed's body, using his armour as a hand hold. When he drew level with the mercenary's shoulder, Zaeed let go of the decking with one hand and hammered an elbow into the man's temple, but he stubbornly held his grip. With another two blows, the man's fingers slipped loose, and he tumbled away toward the door.

He impacted the door frame beside Tali, and grabbed hold of the quarian with both hands. She barely had time to let out a squeal of alarm before they both vanished out of the hatch.

XXXXXX

Mordin approached a damaged section of the ship's hull, a huge gouge torn into the side of the Styx from some sort of explosion. It looked like the Normandy had managed to hit some key location on the larger vessel, and a secondary explosion had peeled open the armoured hull like a ripe fruit.

He watched with no small measure of interest as a blast door opened, venting atmosphere out into space. He spied the orange glow of energy shields as several men and women in Cerberus uniforms were sucked out into space, their momentum carrying them toward a spur of shattered hull, and they hit the large shard of armour plating, bouncing off and spinning away into space.

Not a pleasant way to go.

As he drew closer, he realised that the breach was no accident when he spotted a human clad in the black and white armour of a Cerberus soldier tumbling through the vacuum, trying to tear the facemask from a clearly terrified Tali'Zorah vas Normandy.

Thinking quickly, the salarian calculated the trajectory of the pair, trying to factor in all likely variables for the moment they struck the shard of the hull. Too many possibilities – no time to think, must act.

Bracing himself against the ruined hull of the Styx, he coiled his legs up underneath him, faced what he hoped was the right direction, and leapt into the void.

XXXXXX

Emergency blast doors slammed shut back down the corridor, and the warning claxons quietened as the last of the oxygen was sucked out into space. Thane drifted down from the ceiling, drawing his sniper rifle from his shoulders. The drell hurriedly propelled himself through the void toward the open blast door and braced himself against its frame.

Readying the rifle, he aimed it after the tumbling pair, trying to get a shot on the officer that would not hit Tali as well, but they were tumbling too far and too fast for it to be possible. Zaeed heard him curse in his native tongue over their communications channel, his auto translator drawing a blank on the alien words.

The mercenary watched as Garrus dove after her without hesitation, and seeing the turian drifting away into the void it was his own turn to curse. His rifle was gone, sucked out into the black, leaving him with only his sidearm to face off against the half dozen surviving Cerberus troopers, each of them still wielding their glowing riot shields.

XXXXXX

Tali's glowing eyes were wide with fear as she fell through space, the human soldier grasping onto her with a vice like grip. She felt panic rising as he reached for her mask; he was trying to pull it off!

She lashed out at him, slamming her fists into his armoured form, but to no avail – the hard suit deflecting the power of her blows. Her visor was misting up, and it took her a moment to realise that it was the air venting from his suit. She couldn't know that Garrus had punctured his armour with a volley of fire from his assault rifle, but she knew what it meant – the man was already dead, and she could see in his hate filled eyes that he knew it too. That meant that self preservation was not even entering his mind, and all he wanted to do was take her with him to the grave.

That was not going to happen.

Drawing up her knee into the man's groin, she noted the momentary relaxation of his grip, and she reached down to her ankle, and the knife sheathed there.

So fuelled by rage was he that the Cerberus officer never even saw it coming, and his rage turned into surprise as she stabbed the blade through the seal of his helmet and up into his jugular. Blood fountained as she twisted the knife before tearing it free, the crimson orbs floating away through the vacuum. His grip on Tali relaxed as he bled out, his transparent faceplate slowly turning red as his helmet filled with blood, the liquid pumping from the wound faster than it could escape from the rent in his throat seal. Within seconds his struggling ceased, and he offered no further resistance.

The immediate danger past, Tali looked around her, trying to get a sense of perspective and looking for anything she could use to arrest her fall through the void. Before she had a chance to react, she slammed into a massive shard of armour plating that had peeled away from the hull, her momentum propelling her away from the ship. She scrabbled at the wreckage, desperate to find a hand hold, frantically grasping at the smooth metal before it slid away from her, and her hands closed around empty space.

XXXXXX

Garrus saw the wreckage of the ship before Tali did, and he knew he would never reach her in time. He watched in horror as she hit it, knocking her away from ship and into space. As he flew toward the shard himself, he braced himself for the impact, firing his pulse rifle to slow his momentum as best he could. As he drew closer he returned the weapon to its magnetic lock on the back of his armour and readied himself for the impact.

He hit the shard slow enough to allow himself a grip on the damaged edge with his claws, and he held on as best he could, securing himself on the hull of the ship. He looked up into the void, a sense of peerless vertigo washing over him, and he spotted Tali's flailing form as she drifted away.

Garrus felt a knot in his stomach as she faded into the black. Closing his eyes he whispered his regret before turning back the way he had come, seeing Zaeed and Thane engaging the Cerberus survivors. He had to focus on the situations he could control – help those he had a chance of helping.

Tali was on her own now.

XXXXXX

Zaeed was in amongst the Cerberus troopers before they could fully recover, putting a round through the face of the nearest one who back flipped in the zero gravity, spinning away from the force of the impact.

Thane was by his side in an instant, the mercenary and the assassin experts in zero gravity combat. The drell flew through the void and landed on the riot shield of another trooper, knocking the woman backward off her feet, and together they drifted toward the far wall. She tried to get her pistol around the edge of her shield to take a shot at the drell, but Thane was faster, and he pulled himself up and over the top of the shield, grasping the woman's helmet in both hands and twisting savagely as he flew past.

Thane kicked off the wall the second his feet touched it, the corpse slamming into the spot he had just vacated. Another trooper fired a burst from his machine pistol, but succeeded only in hitting his dead colleague. The trooper tried to turn and face Thane, but the recoil from the full auto burst pushed him backwards in the zero-g, and he over compensated, turning to where he expected the drell to be, and not where Thane actually was.

He never had time to correct his mistake, as Thane put a round from his Phalanx past the arc of the shield and through his face, his kinetic barrier no match for the powerful hand cannon.

Zaeed pushed off from the deck, powering himself toward the last pair of Cerberus troopers and shoulder barging the riot shield of the first, arresting his own momentum but knocking his opponent backwards. Twisting around, he grabbed the front of the second man's riot shield and pulled it toward him with all his strength. The trooper and the mercenary stared at each other through the orange glow of the energy shield, Zaeed using his body to block any fire from the first man.

Thane had disappeared into the shadows up in a cluster of pipes on the ceiling, and was waiting for the right time to strike.

XXXXXX

Garrus pushed off the shard and back toward Zaeed and Thane, his rifle back in his hands once more. As he drew nearer the turian signalled to the mercenary over their closed communications feed.

"Massani, get out of the way; you're blocking my shot – and if you can get that shield facing away from the door I'd really appreciate it." Garrus said, sarcasm dripping from his words. He blocked any thought of Tali from his mind and focussed everything on the enemy beyond his iron sights, the star field reflecting from the mirrored surface of the geth weapon.

He watched as Zaeed tightened his grip on the energy shield before snapping his pistol out to the side and firing a full clip into the far wall, the recoil spinning the two men around until the Cerberus trooper had his back to the open hatch.

Garrus didn't hesitate, and fired his rifle, stitching the man from buttocks to neck before putting the last three rounds from the weapon through the back of the man's helmet. The impact pushed Zaeed and the corpse further back into the darkness, and Garrus lost sight of them as the riot shield flickered and died, a stray round deflecting from the concave surface of the shield and destroying the emitter built into the man's vambrace.

Garrus saluted the mercenary as he drifted back toward the interior of the ship, his momentum slowed by the weapon's recoil.

XXXXXX

With only one Cerberus trooper remaining, the fight was over – before the man had a chance to fire at Zaeed's now exposed back, Thane came at him from above, breaking his neck before he'd even realised the drell was there.

Garrus slowly drifted in through the hatch, Zaeed and Thane catching him and pulling him back to the deck, their magnetic seals anchoring them back to the floor.

"Where's the quarian?" Zaeed said - his frown visible through his faceplate.

"I... couldn't get to her in time." Garrus said, hanging his head in shame.

"Then may Arashu watch over her." Thane said as he reloaded his pistol before stowing it back in its holster.

"Let's just hope we can get through the door on the other side of this mess." Zaeed replied, bringing the focus of the two men back to the mission at hand.

"I think I can manage it, so long as her hacking algorithms are still active in the open door." Garrus replied, prepping his omni tool.

"Then get to it." Zaeed said, checking the armour seal where he had been shot earlier in the fight. Thankfully his battle plate was prepared for extended fighting in a vacuum, and the moment the room had vented it had applied a ceramic polymer to the bullet hole, sealing it shut. The downside was that the stuff was mildly toxic, and the wound burned from the presence of the irritant.

Better that than dead.

XXXXXX

Tali drifted in the black, her eyes rapidly scanning her internal suit diagnostics. She had air reserves enough for three more hours out here, and the built in temperature regulator was keeping her warm. At least she wouldn't freeze to death.

As she contemplated the situation, and her approaching death, Tali could think of nothing but those she had lost on Haestrom. Perhaps this was her just reward. The thought came with an odd sense of peace – resignation that she had done her best, and it had not been enough.

As the Styx grew slowly smaller before her eyes, she wondered if Shepard had survived. She hoped so.

Her thoughts were interrupted as something impacted with her and she began to spin, the heavy weight of the object latching onto her and pushing her through somersaults in the void. Dizzy, Tali barely noticed as the spinning began to slow, arresting the motion.

She looked down in confusion, and did not initially comprehend the three fingered hands clasped around her chest. Black gloves with white armour plating.

"Tali'Zorah, still with me?" A clipped, hurried voice called out over her suit frequency.

Mordin smiled at the young quarian's affirmation, and used the thrusters on his EVA suit to slowly guide their course back toward the Normandy.


End file.
